Pooptacular!

Somehow I managed to get a bee in my bonnet who told me I was sick and tired of changed nasty, smelly, poopy diapers.  So I came up with this glorious plan to potty-train Landon. I have been working with him for a while now on pulling his own pants on and off so he could do it himself and he knows all the required "potty talk".

 It started off like this:

Me: "Landon do you want to be a big boy and go potty in the big potty?"
Landon: "No!  I want to be a baby."
Me: "Landon, do you want to be big like Dalin and Braden and use the big boy potty?"
Landon: "No! I'm a baby."

Not a good start and definitely a bad omen.  But when I get an idea in my head I tend to get stubborn.  Me?  Stubborn?  Imagine that.  The first mistake I made was trying to do it when Braden was there.  He bossed and demanded and tried to put himself in the middle of everything and got mad when I asked him to go play by himself for a little while.  He had Landon throwing fits and was loud and obnoxious as I was trying to explain things to Landon and just plain wanted the whole thing to be about him and not Landon.  That frustrated me and made me less patient with Landon.  So lesson learned.  Landon's potty training did not go as smoothly as the other two.  He understood the concept of going in the toilet and would go every time I put him on it, but the problem was he didn't want to be put on it.....ever.  So of course, a battle ensued.  Now, he doesn't fight me about everything like dear little Braden but he does get very whiny and dramatic about things he doesn't want to do and becomes what I refer to as the floppy fish.  When he's like that it's hard to even pick him pick him up because he throws his hands up and his head back and lets his legs go limp.  I'm sure every parent out there has dealt with the floppy fish.  The first week or so he did pretty good IF I made him sit on the potty.  He would not go on his own.  If I didn't make him go on time he would pee his pants.  We had a lot of accidents.  Then there's the poop.  Apparently potty training to Landon did  not include bowel movements.  Have you ever had to change poopy underwear over and over.  Let me tell you it's not fun.  He would go hide somewhere every time he had to poop.  If I ever saw him off in a corner somewhere I would rush him to the toilet where we would end up with poop everywhere.  I finally started putting him in the cold bath which consisted of me standing him in the bath and splashing cold water on him  to get the soap off after he had an accident which of course he didn't like.  Then he found a diaper in the diaper bag of a baby I was watching and took his pants off and brought me the diaper and asked me to put it on.  When I told him he didn't wear diapers anymore he started to cry with that truly broken heart cry and just kept saying "I don't want to wear underwear". It was right after he pooped all over himself at Walmart that I first considered putting him back in diapers.  But I didn't want him to go backwards and I definitely didn't want to keep changing diapers.  I was up all night one night thinking it over and trying to come up with a better plan.  I just kept thinking to myself, "What am I doing wrong?  How does Landon think?  What am I doing wrong?"  I finally came to the conclusion that Landon is the most linguistically gifted of the three of my kids and he understands things pretty well for a 2-and-a-half-year-old.  Most of the time I can avoid a tantrum if I make sure that I explain things to him.  I decided this was no different.  So the next morning I had a one-on-one conversation with him.  I simply said "Landon, if you need to go potty then you need to come and tell me.  If you pee or poop your pants then we're going to wash it off with cold water before we put on dry pants.  If you come and tell me then we don't have to have a cold bath"  Well, let's just say this little tactic did the trick and we now have a fully independent potty trained child.  He will come and tell me when he has to go and I help him get there. It's wonderful to not have to worry about diapers any more.  At night I've trained him to knock on his door if he needs help.  He has a little potty in his room that he can go in at night or nap time and it works perfectly.  I have figured out the Landon system and now I can finally say, or rather yell from the rooftops "NO MORE DIAPERS!"