POTTY-TRAINED!!

...And we are officially POTTY TRAINED! Fully. Yes, that's right. He pooped. and pooped. and pooped again.

So now we can pee-pee in the potty. Sleep in underwear at night and at naptime with no accidents. (That has actually never been an issue, thankfully.) And now we can poop. Okay, so I have always been able to do that, lol, so when I say we, I really mean Jackson...:)

I have definitely been taught a lesson here, and that is that nothing is too small to pray about. I had thought it was too trivial for prayer, and although it has been a major struggle in our lives now for months, I kept trying to handle it on my own. Finally, Jackson and I both came to a traumatizing point in the potty training process, and we both added it to our prayers, and I guess that was all the Lord needed. Less than a week later, Jackson has absolutely no fear about pooping in the potty.

Strangely, the first time he was successful was while we were on our family camping trip. He really wanted his bb gun that his Papa De had brought for a present (Don't even get me started on that...picture fumes coming out of my ears...nuff said), so I told him that I would only get it down for him if he would go poo poo on the potty Daddy had built for us at our cabin. (It was a potty seat attached to a metal chair frame - rustic, but better than being in the very vulnerable position of squatting in the dark, praying fervently that the slight brush against your naked bum was a mischievous plant blowing in the wind.) Anyway...you never saw a person get up on a potty and push one out so fast! So of course, we praised him. And praised him. And praised him. We gave him candy, toys, and...grrr... the promised gun. And he got to play with it (unloaded, safety on, and with me and Daddy within arms reach) for a few minutes until he smacked his brother in the head, and then I snatched it back, and then out of sight and out of reach it returned.

We wondered if that experience would transfer, and the first day back at home he was't interested, but when we reminded him about his gun, we have had no problems since. Every day since we have been back, he has made a bowel movement. No constipation, no tears, no turmoil. At this point, if I had to dip a little into redneckville to acheive said status, then so be it!! Actually, I have been fairly successful at distracting him from the gun reward and giving himcandy or toy rewards instead. After a 2 week period, I hope to remove all treats and we'll just have a completely potty-independent kid!