My baby boy turned 2½ on Sunday. He is now as old in months as I am in years… heh. Happy 30th, Oliver London!

Lately I have to remind myself that he is still technically a toddler because sometimes he seems ready to start 1st grade. But fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately?—ask me again in a week! lol) he still has a few major milestones on the road to becoming a Big Boy… beginning with Project Potty Training.

Oliver has been showing signs of potty training “readiness” the past couple months, like going a couple hours at a time with a dry diaper and asking me to change his diaper when it’s wet/dirty. And since he’s in the 95-97th percentile for height and weight at his age, and he’s already in the largest size of diapers, we’re afraid he’ll grow out of them before he’s ready! So we decided that, since George had today off for the holiday, this was the Big Day.

We talked about it all weekend, saying “Guess what, Oliver? Monday we’re going to learn how to use the potty!” and trying to make it seem FUN! and EXCITING! We told him that he should tell Mama or Apu when he had to pee or poop and we would take him to the potty. So this morning we started right after taking off his wet diaper by going directly to sit on the potty. He wasn’t thrilled about it; he just wanted to come downstairs and play, but he sat on it for about 10 seconds before running off. We brought the potty downstairs to the family room and then put a diaper back on him for breakfast time (because who wants their naked butt on a cold chair??). We had him sit on the potty again after breakfast and then about every hour, which he would only do with his pants on, so we did have to change his diaper at one point. But after lunch, when I checked and found his second diaper still dry, I got him to sit on the potty in just his diaper for about 10 minutes and suggested that he go pee while we were talking and reading—and afterwards, when I checked again, there was pee in it! So I clapped and told him how proud I was, and he seemed to understand that he did a good thing.

In the evening, we repeated the same routine. I actually talked him into leaving off his pants AND his diaper for half an hour right before putting him in bed, thinking if we waited long enough, he would surely have to pee. But it was probably too strange just yet for him to “go” without the familiar feeling of his diaper. That’s ok though… today was only the first day. We’re not in a rush; I really don’t expect any success for at least a few weeks. My mom told me to keep trying and eventually it will just “click” for him one day.

We’re taking a very relaxed approach because I don’t want this to be stressful on any of us. Obviously, Oliver already has the relaxed part down pat: