Where have you been my whole life!?!?!?!?!?!?

So I was wondering around Babies R Us yesterday desperately searching for inspiration to get Aiden potty trained and I came across God's gift to potty training stubborn children!!! Ok, to know our little Aiden is to know that he is a Disney FREAK like his parents. :) That apple didn't fall too far from the tree! Anything Mickey Mouse, Cars, Toy Story or Chuggington (to name a few) really make his day. But, we had tried these things before. I have tried to reward him with Chuggington trains and although he was very excited to see them, the concept of actually going pee to get one seemed to be going right over his head. I walked down one isle and turned the corner and there is was like a beacon of light in an otherwise dismal world.

Introducing........

The Pull-Ups Potty timer watch!!!
http://www.pull-ups.com/na/potty_timer.aspx?WT.mc_id=PUG11&3258

And then it all hit me. He hates ME telling him to go to the potty and dragging him over and making him sit there so I though, alright..... I'll take myself out of the equation. Aiden LOVES "Queen" as he calls it, so why not let "Queen" do the training. I set the potty timer on Aiden's watch for 15 minutes and a little chime goes off and it's time to sit on the potty. This little watch has a bunch of options like a chime, vibrate or a recorded message from a parent, but because again, I wanted to take myself out of it completely and I wanted to know when it was going off I opted for the chime setting.

I am against the clock with this whole potty training thing so that Aiden can start pre-school on-time on September 12th. So walking down another isle I was hit with another inspiration. Aiden wants to be with the big kids so bad everywhere he is. He loves going to Sunday School and church (which we call "Pray and Play" at home) because he can run around with the other kids. With that in minds, I stumbled across these little gems......

It was a buy a backpack and get a lunch kit free sale - how can you turn that down???

Aiden doesn't know what school is even thought we talk about it and he's been to Mommy's school several times, but they are all teenagers and I don't think he makes the connection that he will go to a school with kids his own age, but we watch the kids come home from school everyday after I get off school and he sees them with their backpacks so I thought I could play on that little visual for him and tell him that he gets to go to school with the big kids and have his very own "pack pack" to take with him, but he has to go potty in the potty all the time first.

So my overall strategy today was this.... to set up the potty in the kitchen on the tile, flood him with water and we are spending the day in here, watching videos, reading books, eating and playing with cars and Keegan and Aiden is in fact in the buff with the exception of his watch which chimes at him every 15 minutes.


As for the results.... he has successfully peed in the potty twice and all on his own mind you. The first could of times that his alarm went off I would tell him that McQueen said that it was time to go potty and I would look down at his watch and see Lightning McQueen blinking at him and we would run over to his little potty together. Now he is doing it on his own and I am leaving it up to him as to how long to sit there. I'm setting up a controlled environment to allow him to "think" he's in control of his own potty training. The two times he has gone, I let him tell me and then I go nuts and make a HUGE deal out of it and give him his little ice cream dip thing that is right here in the freezer.

So far so good, but there is just no breaking this child's will at the moments and I don't see a need to fight that battle over potty training. We are doing swim lessons too and that's enough of a challenge to try to allow for experimentation and maintain safety. Talk to me in a few years when we are facing different issues, but as for this one.....it's his bodily function and I'm ok with him figuring this one out himself as long as I can foster a nurturing and exciting environment to do it in. Makes for a happy Aiden and an ecstatic Momma!!!