Pooped in the toilet!!!

So the title gives it away, but I just had to share. Not once, but twice this week he has pooped in the toilet!!! I'm stupid excited. For weeks, I've been taking him to the bathroom & sitting him on the toilet when I see that he's Assuming The Position to poop in his Pull Up. (Sidenote: if Ican get them on sale and use a coupon, those suckers are $0.38 each - mulitply that by 7 years, and you can imagine my white-hot desire not to have to buy those anymore.) What's happened up until this week is that I sit him on the toilet, I sing potty songs and T playfully tries to flush or impress me with his upper arm strength by lifting himself up off the toilet seat. I know he has to poop - I can smell it, and I would have just seen him out in the kitchen starting to push. But to no avail - he would just wait me out until I give up and let him get up, and invariably, I'd turn my back to wash a dish or change laundry, and he'd poop in the Pull Up. And I'd try not to cry.

This topic, along with our taking him off special diets, has prompted so many well-intentioned suggestions, monologues and lectures directed at me that I am no longer entirely patient or rational when speaking about it. Have you tried this? Yes. How about this? Yes. What about...yes, yes, yes. I've tried it and it's been 7 years and if it were that easy I WOULD HAVE DONE IT BY NOW. And he'd be potty trained and I wouldn't have lost probably the equivalent of 3 months' time of my life sitting on the floor of the bathroom trying to encourage him to poop. Think I haven't been trying to potty train him since he was three? Every poopy diaper is a reminder of 1) just how delayed he is and 2) how much of a failure I feel that I am in this area.

See, not too patient & rational anymore. Of course I'm not a failure. But he is delayed. Remember: functioning at about a 2 1/2 year age equivalency.

But back to the good news!!!! Monday, I once again caught him just as he was about to push. I smelled a few "warning shots", so with my patience in tow, I took him to the bathroom. Those faint of heart & with delicate sensibilities, stop reading. He sat down, and after a moment, I could see that the tiniest bit of poop had emerged. I praised him, patted & massaged his legs, encouraged him, and waited, and waited, and watched. Nothing. Several minutes passed. I'm thinking "For crying out loud kid, I can SEE you have to go! For the love of God, DO IT!" So maybe this was divine intervention, but I started singing vocal warm-ups to him. He thinks arpeggios are hilarious, so I sang them. I sat on the floor of our half bathroom singing arpeggios and made him laugh and smile and laugh some more, and then...quite to his and my surprize...PLOP, a poop hit the water. It was one of the most beautiful sights ever. And the addus bonus, he did it again the next day. Haven't caught him since Tuesday, but I will - and he'll get the hang of it.

I have to laugh when I think of this story, though. I mean, what a truly bizarre story - my singing my operatic warm-ups in the bathroom while my son takes his first dump in the toilet. But he did it, by God, and I'll sing in the bathroom everyday for the rest of my life if it will help him poop in the toilet.