Adventures in Potty Trainig

I have barricaded Hudson, Alexis, and I in our kitchen.  Alexis is sound asleep and slightly neglected (thankfully she is too little to realize it) in her little swing while Huddy and I work on potty training.  It is 5:00pm and we have had 0-full successful potties, 2-partal successes, and 5 (yes FIVE)-accidents.

In my head, Huddy would catch on really easy and be a super freak child that learned to use the toilet in ONE DAY.  In my head, there would be tonz of opportunities throughout the day for Huddy to get it right.  In reality though, it looks like it is going to take MUCH MUCH longer than I anticipated.  Also, Hudson isn't the pee machine I previously thought he was.  We have been doing a lot of waiting.  in a 10 hour span, he has only needed to potty 7 times.... that's a lot of trial and error (mostly error).  Only getting two chances to praise him for "almost getting it right", doesn't allow for the learning and confidence building I was hoping to give today.  

Why this sudden urgency to get Huddy Potty Trained?  Well, I went ahead and signed Hudson up for preschool this Fall.  They require that all the children in Hudson's age group be potty trained before they can attend.  I've already paid the registration fee and the first months tuition.  Hudson is going to learn to use the potty if it kills me!  :)  

I asked a lot of mommy friends how they went about potty training their children and the main consensus seems to be that it takes a solid 3 days to get the hang of it.  I've already put in a full day.  WE AREN'T GIVNG UP NOW!

Alexis has mostly been swinging in her little lamb swing, but Huddy and I have been doing lots of fun things.  We have read lots of books, watched some MICKEY MOUSE, done some finger painting, coloring, made a pizza....  All in all its been a good day, but I sure am exhausted.  

Who is training who?  

Hudson is being really cooperative and sweet through this whole learning process.  He is happy and in a great mood.  I think he likes all the attention and did I mention the "treats" he gets.  If he uses the potty he gets some m&m's and he gets to put a sticker on his sticker chart that I made him.  His biggest motivator thought is that if he learns to use the potty he can go to pre-school!  I'm feeling very optimistic that Hudson will catch on soon!  He's a smart kid and I think once he starts realizing how this all works he will want to use the potty instead of going in his underwear.   O-did I mention that I took away his diapers.  He was wearing big boy underwear with airplanes on them, but he dirtied all 5 of them so now he's just going around without any bottoms on at all.  Yes, there are some messy situations, but it's so much easier for him to know when he needs to go.