The Great Potty Training Saga: Part 2

So, things have gotten a bit derailed.

Monster was doing great, and had peed in the toilet first thing in the morning, two days in a row. Then I had to fly to my parents' place for a funeral, and while I brought the monster (and his toilet insert), that meant no opportunity to use the toilet at either airport, for the drive back to my parents' house, or for the two days spent at the funeral home for the visitation and funeral.

And then, at the cemetery, the gut pain started.  And by that evening, I was suffering from explosive diarrhea and bouts of vomiting.  I was about 100 x worse the next day and days after, and ended up having to reschedule my flight - the end result being that, while my family was really helpful, the monster only got to sit on the toilet maaaaybe twice, for the entire week I was there. He also only got one bath, and I'm pretty sure his teeth got neglected, too.   I was too sick to even give them instructions, and to be honest, I still feel guilty about this, a month later :(

It took a bit to get back into the swing of things, but I did - for a while, at least.  I made a dry erase board (see below) with check lists of things to do for morning, afternoon and evening. Basically, Toilet, breakfast, make bed, get dressed, brush teeth, toilet, snack, toilet, lunch, etc.  I set up a scheduled toilet break for before every meal and snack, plus first thing in the morning, and right before bed.  Plus, if he asks to go we take him.

He was actually peeing in the toilet a lot for the first little while.  Once he peed pretty much every time we put him up there (plus in between, but as I said, we don't want him to hold it yet). He even pooped in the toilet once, after asking to use it.

I don't know exactly what happened since then, but somehow we fell out of the routine, and fell out of using the dry erase board.  The past week or so, when I've put him on the toilet, he hasn't gone, and he always wants to get down sooner. He does still like to sit up there to read a "manko" (magazine), but he's not doing the excited dash to the bathroom, or grabbing his insert and putting it on the toilet anymore.

So that's where we are.  Today was kind of a nothing day, as I still feel pretty gross and I really don't have the energy or firm stomach needed to be bending over repeatedly to put him on and take him off the toilet.  He is newly interested in his potty chair, though, so maybe I'll go that route.

On a positive note, when I use the toilet, he'll point at the toilet paper, and once I'm done, he reminds me to flush, points to the sink so I'll wash my hands, and tells me "Towel!" once my hands are washed.  He also occasionally grabs a piece of toilet paper and shoves it at my legs while shouting "Bum!"... I'm not really sure how to get him to stop doing this. It's super awkward, but then it's kind of good that he already knows that step.


DRY ERASE BOARD:
I kind of lied.  I didn't make a dry erase board.

I took a matted 11 x 13 picture frame we already had and decorated the mat with pages from a mid-nineties comic book (Superman is known as "Man!" around here).  Then I put a piece of cool-looking scrapbook paper with daily check lists where the picture would go.

Then I put the glass back in the frame, because apparently, glass is already a surface you can use dry erase on.  I already had a dry erase marker kicking around.