Kaiden is 22 months old now! I can't believe he's almost two. It is amazing how much he says and does now, I simply can't keep up (which is why I stopped my monthly updates).
The major things are that he knows his alphabet (capital letters) by sight. He learned that at 20 months rather out of the blue. We've just been fostering it since then. He is really keen on letters, just like his Mama. :)
He is putting together two and sometimes three word sentences. It's another language that only I can understand sometimes, but that's because I'm around him the most, so I know his little nuances.
And finally, the potty.
Everyone will say not to push it until they are ready, and they would be right. So, when I mention that Kaiden is using the potty here and there, that's the first reaction that I get. I know he is young, and I know they mean well.
I don't look at it as potty training, though. I am kind of just going along with his curiosity and his cues. He doesn't mind sitting on his potty. We bought it when he was 13 months old, just because he liked to follow us into the bathroom and watch us go to potty. We put the little potty chair in the bathroom so he could sit down and go when we were going. It worked out great, and he loved to flush it and say "Bye bye, potty!"
Between 14 months and 21 months, he pooped on the potty twice, and that was just because I took his diaper off and sat with him. He didn't quite understand what was going on. The first time, he screamed and cried when I wouldn't let him touch the poop and took it away to go in the big potty. The second time, he was in awe that there was poop in the potty, but quickly lost interest.
Over the last week, he was bringing me his changing pad and wipes and telling me, "Diaper." He was expressing that he wanted to be changed -- a great sign!
So, I went along with it and asked him during his "poop times" if he wanted to sit on the potty. He'd happily go to his potty, and after I took off his diaper and sat him down, we'd read some books, and he'd poop and pee on the potty. After much celebration, letting him help flush it down the big potty and awarding him with a cookie (I've decided not to do this anymore, though, and set up sticker and Matchbox car incentives instead), we let him call his grandparents and daddy so he could tell them.
Positive reinforcements go a long way. Now, he is so excited to sit and go on the potty. If he doesn't want to, I don't press him. That's not what matters to me right now. What matters is that he is communicating (he has identified the difference between poop and pee now), such as grabbing his boy parts and saying "pee pee" or, today, he looked at me and said "uh oh" before we gleefully hurried to the potty and he pooped. I want him to continue to communicate and learn what is happening with his body. The rest will follow.
I also bought him some pull-ups, in hopes that he will learn how to pull his pants up and down, because he has NO IDEA how to do that right now. Haha.
It's a care-free approach, and I am hoping it works out in the end. I don't expect him to be fully trained anytime soon. My goal here is to foster and support his curiosity and learning his body. So far, it's working out.
Now, to get that coveted picture of him sitting on his potty, so I can show it to his girlfriend 15 years from now!
