A Love/Loathe Relationship

I've heard urban legends of a mythical beast: A child who potty trains him/herself.

I've been holding off on potty training Elliot hoping he might become on of these fairy creatures.

When this failed to occur, I began to wish for some boot camp that I could ship him off to where he would return potty-trained and accident-free.

Tragically, there is no such magical place.

So I had to relent.

You see, when your newly minted 3-year-old spends the bulk of the day telling you he needs to go potty and crying at you to take his diaper off and set him on the toilet, you start to rethink your position on not potty training.

Last week, I began the thing I hate most about motherhood.

The misery of potty training never seems worth the money I would be saving on a diaper-free child.

I'm the kind of quality parent who lets their child walk around with a soggy diaper for the vast majority of the day. So what, I'm saving maybe 75 cents daily by potty training him? Meh.

Here was my biggest problem with Elliot: For the past year this child has had no issue producing urine every time you sit him on the toilet.

The magic trick was getting him to not pee every 3 minutes wherever his cute bum sat.

So I devised a new chart method: Stickers for every success and a car for every 2-3 hours that he remained accident-free.

I made the chart

and Elliot spent the bulk of 3 days at home without any clothes.

We're still in the transition period where he rarely puts on a shirt and shorts and I hold my breath and pray that there will be no accidents when we venture from the safety of the house for an hour or so.

But we're doing fairly well. Not awesome, but not bad. A week after we began, Elliot can go through the day with only one tiny accident.

Plus, this kid is so cute in his underwear ... even when he does call them panties.