Eli: Potty training himself

We decided that we were going to potty train Eli in Boston. Don't want to potty train him now while we have to keep the house in similar condition as the new buyers bought it at (nothing like yellow stains in white carpet to say, welcome to your new home!). Don't want to potty train him in our new house for obvious reasons. So we were planning on potty training Eli in our rental house/apt, wherever we spend a few months to a year before buying a house in the Boston area.

Well, Eli has other plans. We have really made no big efforts to PT him. A couple of months ago (?) he started declaring pee whenever he was taking a bath. I figured it was because he had no diaper on and could "sense" when pee was going to happen. If he peed in the potty, I'd let him wear a pull up the next morning as a "reward" but I wasn't super consistent and since he wasn't making any potty progress besides bath, I thought it was kind of a waste of an expensive pull up.

Then last weekend at Dan's birthday, Eli just had on the non-absorbent reusable swim diaper (because I had accidentally packed the disposable swim diapers, doh) when he came in for cake. I forgot he didn't really have a real diaper on and in the middle of cake, he declares pee pee! pee pee! So we whisk him off to the bathroom but it was a little too late. Then later that evening at Rohan's house, he actually told us when he needed to go. Thank goodness Rohan had a potty seat -- at this early stage of going to the potty, comfort is key! He went three times! And this is with a diaper on!

Monday I thought the novelty wore off since he didn't tell me all day that he wanted to use the potty. And we didn't force it. But yesterday at Tzielan's house, he starts again. And today, not only did he make it through the day pretty dry, he even went in the park's public bathroom. Ick. (Trick courtesy of Eileen: he is too short to stand, the seat too wobbly and big to sit, so I flipped up the seat and had him go while standing on the bowl. It actually worked! He went twice (he tends to go two or three times at a time, that does not bode well for trying to drive across the country even with a generous amount of time!). But I am proud of him and am now thinking that I'm going to need to buy pull ups and possibly give away the packs of diapers I just bought for the next month. Sigh.

Before I say that this is the easiest potty training ever (we haven't read a single book or watched a single video about the potty), we can't overlook the fact that he has never pooped in the potty. I just don't think his muscles are used to going while sitting (while the potty trained population can't see how he could possibly go while standing). I'm not looking forward to that (having to sit him on public toilets, cleaning up "calling cards" as the Berenstain Bears books calls them). So maybe that part of potty training we can save for our rental apartment.