Sense and Sensibility-ness-ing-ly

Today marks one week that we've been working with Luke on his toilet training.

To say it is going spectacularly is probably gushing (pardon the puns that will appear through this whole entry!) a little too much, however here we are 7 days later and he is reliably letting us know "Mummy/Daddy, I need to wee wee!". A two and a half year old bladder has the trickiest trigger you ever saw - the amount of time between the recongition signal that reaches the brain that is then converted into speech to then the relaxing of the muscles that control his bladder is atomically short. So when the call goes out, you act NOW and everything else has to wait (or all of a sudden you've an extra cleaning job to perform after you eventually get him off the toilet).

Initially, we talked up the fact that he was a big boy now and doesn't need a nappy during the day around the house. When he goes out he wears a special pull-up nappy that will catch and make the wearer 'aware' of the situation, but isn't designed to retain the contents like a normal nappy. The practical nature of wanting to check was pretty much stalking him for the next few days, taking him to the toilet every 30 minutes and sitting on there, encouraging him to do his business. We've had a few accidents initially and a growing number of successes as each day flows into the next. He also has a special night-time nappy that more often than not is totally dry when he wakes up. This is also a good sign.

Now, a week passed, and we don't need to watch him as closely (at least as often!) and he comes to us to tell us he needs to wee. You should see us jump when he does! Sometimes we get some false alarms - I think Michelle's record with him is 3 in 2 minutes - and apart from one or two mini incidents he's taken to the whole process astoundingly well. He likes wearing his "unnapants", he looks so different now that it's actually his butt we see from behind and not a nappy, and he's just taken that step further from us in the independence stakes as he grows up that little bit more... mind you, this bit of growing up I don't mind, as I really don't want to be changing the nappy of a 9 year old.

The icing on the cake was tonight. Luke hadn't done a poo in 2 days. I thought he was gonna pop, and then we'd all know about it. After a couple of false "I need to wee" alarms, one finally stuck and he did have to wee and then I got "I have to poo, Daddy". Without trying to gross anyone out - BOY, did he poo! Got one out, he said he was OK, so off we got and cleaned up and underpants on when "I need to do more poo". Undies off, straight back on the loo, and he sure did. So he ended up sitting on the loo for about 10 minutes - not one of them wasted. He even had a visit from his incredibly inquisitive crawling baby sister which he found to be most amusing. After cleaning up the second time, he promptly and quite proudly stepped out to tell all that would listen that he did two poos. He did way more - but at least he understands he did more than one.

At least I'll have one thing I can remind him about when he grows up and is intently full of himself for whatever reason, and thinks he is all that - I know... I KNOW his poo stinks...