Diaper-Free Before Age Three--Wheee!

Moses is not yet completely diaper-free, but we sure are close! Yesterday he started telling me when he needed to go pee, as opposed to me putting him on the potty every half-hour as a preventative measure, and most of the time he made it to the potty without having an accident. In fact, his only pee accident occurred on the bathroom floor, which he considerately took the initiative to wipe up himself. Moses has yet to intentionally poop on the potty, though, and I have a feeling this might come a little later, as it did with the twins. Case in point: yesterday Moses came running to me and said, "I need a napkin." As that all-too-familiar stench wafted up to my nose, I asked him why he needed a napkin, and he urgently reiterated his request. I gave him a napkin and then followed him out towards the porch, where he instructed me to stay at the door. "No, Mommy, you stay there. I will clean it. You stay there, ok?" I of course ignored his instructions, but I admire his independent nature and thought it was sweet that he had good intentions to clean it himself.

This afternoon, when it was time to take the twins to preschool, I felt confident enough to have Moses leave the house without a diaper, and sure enough, after we dropped his brothers off and got back to the car, Moses told me "I need to pee at Tauxemont". He had peed on the potty at Tauxemont for the first time on Monday, and I guess he wanted to do it again. Rather than walk back into the school, I rummaged through the trash heap that inevitably spawns on the floor of our car and had him pee in an empty Deer Park bottle. Moses was thoroughly amused by the novelty of this new waste receptacle. I then decided to go do some shopping in Old Town, so I put him in a diaper since I thought he might fall asleep while in the stroller. Of course he stayed awake for the duration of our outing, but while we were out and about he did tell me that he needed to go pee even though he was wearing a diaper. I told him to go ahead and pee in his diaper since we were nowhere near a bathroom. Then that evening, to cap off a day of profound potty progress, Moses peed at the potty standing up "like a big boy" for the first time. Needless to say, I am so impressed that our 2-year-and-3-month-old is almost diaper-free!