A new adventure begins

What adventure, you ask?

Potty learning, of course!

I haven't been interested in doing any potty business with Miles because I didn't see many signs of readiness.  I planned to start in January, when he is 2.5 years old.  But last week, I started to see more signs that he may be ready, so I used a gift card to buy a potty (I didn't want to be out any real money if it ended up as a massive failure) and started buying cloth trainers.  We have some undies that are hand-me-downs (that should probably gross me out more than it does, huh?), some that are the more padded variety.

I decided to do a little bit of what I called "potty exposure" time this week, where I would put him in undies, have him sit on the potty and get stars for every time he did certain things potty-related.  But first, I assembled our Potty Box.  In it, I put:

1. Our potty books, Time To Pee and Everyone Poops.  We have now added a borrowed Elmo potty book.
2. The undies
3. A jar of M&Ms
4. A baggie of cookies
5. Several small prizes (collected Happy Meal toys, from any time I can snatch them before he notices them.)

I put the potty chair in the living room (with a towel underneath) and place our Potty Chart on the wall next to it.  The Potty Chart has activities "Walked to the potty," "Pulled down undies at the potty," etc. in rows and the columns have days of the week.  Every time he did those things, he got a star on the row in that day's column.  Fifteen stars = prize (one prize each day).  The M&Ms are instant rewards for peeing, cookies are an instant reward for pooping in the potty.

Let's just say he didn't get any M&Ms or cookies.

I really just don't think he's ready.  He did really well at cooperating, would pull down his undies (with help), sit on the potty, and sit there long enough to sing a few songs or read his books.  He really got into the star thing, he always wants to count up his stars.  But he doesn't seem to have any concept of what it means to pee or that you do it in the potty.  Not sure how you teach this, either.

I have more cloth trainers on the way and I'm selling some diapers to get more PayPal funds to buy more trainers.  We'll try again in a month maybe, unless he shows me he is otherwise ready.