Elephant in the Room

It appears we may be on our way to finally getting traction in this potty training thing.

Sasha only has accidents with the pee-pee if he’s asleep.
He always lets us know if he has to go, and will try if we ask him to (as all parents ask children when we’re about to get in the car or other situation where toilet use is about to become more problematic).
He is using the big toilet and the little one has been put away, as has the small folding seat for public toilets.

And we have gotten the reward system to work. Finally. For that portion which has been problematic.

At least, sort of.

For the past year, Sasha has refused to poop on the toilet. I don’t mean he just hasn’t figured out that portion. I mean he’s REFUSED. I will ask him to poopy on the potty. He’ll tell me he won’t. Not ever. And to poop on the potty is bad.

I’ll tell him it isn’t. That it’s good. That pooping on the potty makes Mommy and Daddy happy and little boys who do it get prizes.

And he gets indignant.

That is….till the elephant entered the picture.

You see, we’d told him that he could earn new toys by doing certain things months ago (food, candy, stickers and other typical prizes weren’t working). The only thing is, I kept the toys a secret. Which apparently was a mistake. Right before vacation, he found the elephant. It was one of many toys I bought on consignment. Nothing was more than $3 and this particular toy was still in the original packaging. He was so excited that he had this new toy he didn’t know about.
That is, till I told him the elephant was Mommy’s and she’d decided she was going to give it to a boy who pooped in the potty.

Well, that did it. He wanted that and was going to get it before any other boy pooped in the potty and could win the prize.

Amusing how he thought this was a competition with all males the world over.

He won it, finally, when we returned. And has been working to earn more prizes.

Please, God, have this be the sign we are nearing the end of poopy pants!