Movin' Right Along

Will did it at the beginning of the summer. Tess did it, a month ago. Danielle did it, two weeks later. Joseph has joined their ranks, now. We have one less kid in diapers! I can't say "no more diapers!" because James still wears them, but I can't say "he's in underpants!" quite yet, either. We'll get to that.

I'm not sure who decided what, or why, but it started a week ago, Friday. Our standard deal with Elena is that she can not have any accidents in the week leading up to the Daddy/Daughter Campout, because the campground restrooms take time to get to, and she has to practice planning ahead. At the last minute, I ran out to the store so that the campers would have cash on hand to pay for the campsite, and Elena begged to go with me. That poor grocery cart did not deserve what happened to it, and the deal was broken. Somehow, during the cleanup and bath at home, Joseph ended up in underpants. He did not seem in any way adverse to this development--perhaps because of promises to go camping for his birthday, in the spring--so he stayed there. I set the kitchen timer for two hours, and every two hours I 'd get him to hop up and run to the bathroom to do his thing. After a couple of hours, he knew that the beeper meant potty time, and that he could go on his own, too. He even happily repeated the performance for three days. One small hitch, though--dry pants percentage was ~90%, clean pants were only about 2%. And then, at some point, Joseph forgot to put his underpants back on, after visiting the potty, and was totally accident-free for the rest of the day. He knew he needed to go, ran to the bathroom, did his thing, and that was that.

So... we have a half-naked child running around our house, these days, though he does put the rest of his clothes on if we need to go out. He managed to stay presentable at church, today. The process was much more laid back than earlier attempts with him, too. Don't worry, Regan, the diapers Tess passed on to us will still get used, it'll just take a little time for James to grow into them.