Potty Training......

For the past little while I have felt like a YO-YO...physically, emotionally and with just the usual routine of life. Life is never easy! Is it ever easy?? Or is it always meant to be difficult....like a rolling hillside...life has ups and downs!! Who knows where I am right now on this country hillside......perhaps right now I am rolling along some flat ground! But during this roller coaster of life(nice images...huh??) we decided to start POTTY TRAINING! Our youngest, Alex, just turned three on Remembrance Day and the following day I decided to throw him into training pants!! Now the funny thing, I bought him pull ups, Cars Underwear and Training Pants(the quilted kind)....now they are for BOYS and on the package it says, "Training Panties". I thought about this...it made me laugh...I can understand if the "panties" were for GIRLS...but these are for BOYS...they are BLUE and have DOGS ......shouldn't it read "Training Pants".....make it sound MASCULINE!? None the less.....I bought all these and gave them to Alex for his Birthday!! I bet he was EXCITED!! LOL!

So the next day I put a pair of the "training panties" on him. We chatted(one sided mind you) about go pottying and what would happen if we didn't make it!! The whole morning I kept asking "do you have to go potty?" and the answer would be, "NO!" This went on for the WHOLE day!! Even my Daughter was asking him....I bet he was annoyed! But....later in the afternoon...he had that look...that look like he was about to go but didn't want to tell me....it was like he wanted to see if the "panties" would hold it!! It didn't!!!! But that was the ONLY time he had an accident.....and its been a week now!!! And BONUS...he wakes up DRY!!

I feel BLESSED.....that he is making an easy transition!! I have three kids.....and I know each kid is different! But with potty training, each child has been the same! EASY!! I wonder if its because I am FORTUNATE enough to be able to stay at home with them!? Now don't get me wrong, life would be easier, financially, if I worked .....but with daycare expenses and MORE juggling of routines, we might not be that much further ahead....LIFE is HARD trying to find that BALANCE....what works for you!? Maybe by being at home with them, having the same routine, being able to spend that time(one on one) to ensure a SMOOTH transition to the potty is the way to go? Perhaps too its because we didn't RUSH him, he was ready for it, at that prefect age....and who knows what that perfect age is! A child is ready when they are ready! Right!? Its hard being a parent...you never really know what is right or wrong....you just have to follow your gut and do what's right for you and your kids. I have heard some horror stories about potty training from my friends. So if my friends are about to ask, "how did you do it?"........I don't know!! But we don't need diapers(Hubby and I calculated that in 7 1/2yrs of diapering three kids, sometimes 2 at a time, we probably spent close to $7K...on DIAPERS ALONE!!) and we don't need the pull-ups I just bought...I only used TWO!!

The only issue now is trying to convince Alex that he doesn't need to POO every time he PEES!! He will sit there, for awhile, trying to POOP........

LAST photo of Alex in a diaper! It was taken this past Summer when Katie attempted to help me and change him herself!