Unclear on the Concept

We've been talking to James a lot lately about going to the bathroom on the "big boy potty". To this end we've also been giving him so diaper free time to encourage him to use it. For the past several days he's gotten excited and said, "I need to make a poopy." We then go quickly to the bathroom where he proceeds to sit on the potty, get up and say, "I made a poopy." However, when we look there is nothing there.

Today I decided to get him some "big boy" underwear to futher encourage his efforts. When he got home he was very excited, but after trying on one pair decided he prefered to wear nothing on his bottom half. We again made a few false starts on the potty and then went about our business. Suddenly he said, "I need to make a poopy" and sat down on the potty. This time there was a difference - he actually made his poop face. We knew this was it. Sure enough he made a large poop right in the potty. Needeless to say we were very excited and cheered his accomplishment.

After some clean up, interrupted by Anna's poonami, he decided he did want to put on some of his new underwear and some pants. A short time later we were eating dinner when he said, "I peepeed." At first we took this to mean he need to pee but, alas, that was not the case, as made clear by the wet spot on his pants. We then changed him into another pair of underwear and pants and continued our meal.

After dinner he was playing when we heard him say with pride, "I pooped in my underwear." Sure enough, he had gone again and right in his underwear. At this point we explained that underwear were different than diapers - you didn't pee and poop in them, but rather went to use the potty when you knew you needed to poop or pee. Clearly he didn't quite have the concept of underwear down.

We will try again tomorrow!