Mr. Independent

We are trying to work on Mercer's potty-training again. He did it last fall for awhile, then decided he was done with it. It's been more of a struggle this time around, but he hit a pretty good mark this week & "earned" a new toy because of it. We've been rewarding Mercer with raisins for going #1 in the potty for weeks & weeks now... seems like he's mastered that, but would not go #2 in the potty. We had to step up our game & make the stakes a little higher - for each #2, he would get a little box of raisins PLUS a sticker on his potty chart. After a certain number of stickers, he earned a toy. (We pasted a picture of this toy on the back of his potty chart for motivation.) It worked! He's been pooping in the potty every now & then the past couple of weeks. He brought a note home from his teacher at daycare yesterday saying that he was in he same diaper we put him in earlier in the morning. He pooped in the potty at school, then asked to do it again last night. That was the last #2 he needed to earn his toy & he was THRILLED!

The past couple of days, while trying to go potty, he wants us to leave the bathroom. He's starting to want his privacy already! He wants to pull his diaper & pants down by himself to go to the bathroom. He wants to take off his shirt at night & put on his own pajamas... and he's getting better and better at it. He doesn't want us to help brush his teeth anymore. He's been saying - for a long time "I do it first." Usually, we have to let him take a crack at something before we offer to help - otherwise - he gets mad.

One more potty story:

Last weekend, we went hiking in the woods. We were about a mile away from the car - and he tells us that he has to go. So.... Todd takes him off of the path into the woods a little bit... and he pees on the tree! Later, as we were making our way back to the entrance of the park, we passed a field where we had seen some horses earlier. "Where did they go?" "I don't know - they went into the woods," I replied. "They went to the potty?"

Also last weekend, we went back to an event we attended last year: Touch-A-Truck. Mercer loves utility vehicles - has for quite some time. Last year, however, he didn't seem that interested in climbing on them, rather watching them from afar. This year, he enjoyed climbing on the vehicles more - but standing in the long lines was pretty tough for the little guy. When he did, he was rewarded with sitting in the driver's seat of a fire truck and a huge bulldozer.

Todd & Mercer came down to my office yesterday afternoon. My company was throwing a little going away party for me up on our green roof. 6 years at the non-profit is a pretty long run! Most people that come through are only at Southface for 2 - 3 years. I still have 4 more days to work, technically, but it was a nice little event. I will miss that job, but am looking forward to a little time off, a change in my work-life, but am especially looking forward to being much closer to home each day!