31 For 21: Day 26...Another Small Step?

My proud boy!

For months, Andrew has been interested in the potty.  He loves to flush the potty and when he does, he looks into the bowl, waves and says, "bye!"  It's really cute, until he continues to flush...and flush and flush.  He also has his own "little" potty.  He likes to sit on it, but so far, that's about all he's done on it.  I also haven't been pushing him or formally training him to use the potty.  This is mostly because I haven't had enough time to spend with him to dedicate to this task.  I'm not good at following schedules or routine, something that Andrew desperately needs.  I was going to wait until Christmas break to really start the potty training.  I thought that by having almost 2 weeks without any school or other interruptions, we could make some progress.  My brother and sister will be here for 2 weeks with their families, so I already know that I have to have everything ready for the holidays before they arrive the weekend before Christmas.  That was the plan...

For the past week or so, Andrew has been saying, "Potty, potty" constantly, mostly when I think that he's trying to stall.  Mostly right before bed, he will start with this rather new word.  I have been trying to be consistent and I do put him on the potty where he will just sit there and demand that I read him a book.  No pee-pee in the potty though.  So for the past 2 nights, I have ignored his request for the potty because I've been tired and just wanted to get him to bed.  Today, he started his potty request sometime after dinner.  Since I was planning to give the kids a bath, I took them into the bathroom and got him ready for the bath.  I noticed that Andrew's diaper was dry even though I changed it right before dinner and it should have been wet.  He sat down on the potty and after a minute or so, he started peeing in the potty!  He seemed very concerned and almost upset and uncertain about it.  I kept encouraging and praising him for peeing in the potty and quickly got the jar of change from the cabinet--the reward that we keep promising the kids if they peed in the potty.  I held out the jar to him and he took a big handful of change out of it.  He stood up and I turned him around so he could look in the potty and see what was there.  I kept up the praise as I followed him into his room so he could put his handful of change into his bank.  He carefully put each coin into the bank and his face lit up when he shook it to see how much was in there.

While, I'm not all that confident that something connected in Andrew tonight when he finally used the potty, but I did learn two things---I need to start to follow a routine for the potty for Andrew and I need to actually take Andrew to the potty when he asks.  I can't wait to send Andrew to school tomorrow with the note in his backpack telling of Andrew's success tonight.  I also want to ask if Andrew asks to use the potty at school or if it's just at home.

I'm interested to hear from my friends here...How old were your kids with Ds potty trained?  How old were your typical kids potty trained?  And please let me know if they are a girl or boy.  I am also struggling with Hailey and the potty, but she still is young.  She just turned 2 in August and while she was interested in the potty for a short time, she seems to be fighting even sitting on the potty anymore...that is, except when Andrew wants to sit on the potty.  When that happens, she would do anything to get to the potty before he does!  So, I'm just wondering when typical girls were trained!  Thanks for any interesting stories or tips.