And things were going so well...

My subheads post is in the works, but trends tend to hit the midwest late, as evidenced by a NEW trend hitting the blogwaves. Outlines. Who would have thunk? Deb, of course, so clever, so witty, so hip.

Poop. Currently a hot topic. Owen started the potty training gig last week in the wake of Miles triumphs, can't be outdone by the cousins now can we? He is doing awesome. Jerry gets all the credit, since he has the patience to sit and play with the boy all day and take him to the potty every five minutes. After one day (last Saturday) he even went to church in big boy panties (Owen, Jerry's been wearing big boy panties for as long as I've known him which is, get this, 19 YEARS!)

Saturday and Sunday were great, with the typical hits and misses, but overall for a boy who exhibited zero interest until last weekend, he was doing well. Monday rolls around and I become the on duty dooty trainer. And I should probably interject that Jerry single handedly potty trained all the girls. He decided train Taylor after my half- hearted attempts failed. He decided to train her during a cross country flight to PA/8 hour drive to Canada/train-car-plane trip to TN/and the cross country flight home. By the time they arrived back in SD, she was 100% out of diapers. I wasn't even on the trip. Her first days/nights/weeks without me and Daddy worked his magic.

The beginning of the week went along as as expected, with minor mishaps, but nearly all the messy stuff making it to the appropriate bowl. I should also mention that we've trained him to sit backwards on the pot, straddle-style. I imagine soon he'll be standing, but I wasn't about to buy a potty. The one we've had since 1997 doesn't quite fit Owen and his parts. With Deb's warning to keep some things private, we'll just leave it at that.

There has been lots of celebrating, fist bumping, skittle eating and bum shaking in the past week. He's totally got it. He doesn't like diapers anymore. He takes them off all by himself.

Deb, did you happen to see Owen eat any of that chicken carcass last week? Really? Are you sure? He had some similar symptoms this week, lucky for us he doesn't shake. I put him down for a nap on Thursday (he LOVES naptime, I LOVES his naptime). Five minutes later I hear his door slam. He always closes his door when he leaves his room. I found him at the top of the stairs with a huge grin on his face. "I poop!" "I poop, Mommy!" No diaper to be seen. Uh oh. I would imagine that the smell at Deb's house was worse than what I experienced, and even though it was fruit-of-my-loins poop, it still was nasty, nasty. Then I found the diaper, in his bed, with it's contents smeared e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e, sad to report there were no poop volcanoes or craftily molded statues of superheroes. We obviously can't compete on that scale.
Change of clothes, change of sheets, Froggy, Rush, & Monkey - hit the showers! The only casualties were a bag of wipes and one board book. And there were the poopy footprints in his room and hallway, but I'm almost happy about that. The more damage he and Max do, the sooner I can get new carpet.

Power napper that the boy is, he slept for 3+ hours. It was time to start my bus route run for the afternoon and expected to have to wake him, since I hadn't heard a peep from the upstairs. Deja vu. Here's Owen, grinning broadly, no diaper. "I poop!" This time there's no poop in the diaper. Hmmm. Maybe he needs to go? Nope. In the hallway is a nice steaming pile. Thanks buddy, I'm that much closer to my new carpet.