Callie Mack'd the Can

Yesterday was a big day in Mackay's life. Which is why I'll start this story with a story about Brigham.

There is a battle of wills in this house. An immovable force (Mommy) and an irresistible temptation (Brigham) have met for months in the battlefield we like to call "the bathroom". Brigham is more than smart enough, old enough and capable enough to have been potty trained months if not years ago and yet we still change his diapers and peel his grapes for him on a daily basis. Now that we are home from our magnificent vacation, we have rededicated to redoubling our already redundant training recourses in the motivation of peepin' in the potty.

So yesterday before church Mommy Michelle throws out the one liner, "If you go poops on the potty today I'll bet you could talk your dad into pulling out the electric train that your Grandma Hill gave us." (not believing it would happen.) Doubt him not. As soon as we get home, and without a word of reminder in between, suddenly a little light comes on and Brig runs up to his mother and I and all but screams, "My body says I have to go poop on the potty! Right now!" The only two people running faster than Brig were his mother and father, promising riches and bounty unimagined. Mackay followed in-trail curious at what the big fuss was about.

It's been awhile since Brig perched his little butt on a toilet so of course the rest of us sat watching anxiously - camcorder in hand.

And Brigham again delivered. He squeezed and grunted. wiggled and wondered and then finally >>plop<
While we were celebrating, the hamsters in Mackay's little head were racing like NASCAR. We found him in the bathroom, buck-naked and sitting on his little toilet seat. All the excitement had triggered something in the little guy to make him want to trigger it himself. As an impartial third eye let me just tell you that anything he can do to get his mother excited is most certainly to be accomplished in short order.

I sat with him for a while offering encouragement and grunting techniques that didn't work. It was fun but his attention span wouldn't allow him to sit on the can for very long and so I figured he was just playing around in the bathroom. Which I was more that willing to do so that I could continue playing with the train myself.

Five or ten minutes later I heard some excited chatter so I went back in the bathroom to find him proudly examining a small pile of poop on the floor he had laid there himself since he was unable to climb back on the toilet himself. "I poop on da potty!" Close enough son.

And if that weren't good enough later in the day Calvin drug me into the bathroom again and this time went peeps on the potty completely by himself for the first time. It was a pretty big deal and we are super-proud of the little guy.

You know, we played with that train all afternoon and I have to tell you that I personally enjoyed myself quite a bit. Both Brigham and Calvin played with the train for sooooo long that they each pooped their pants to the point of massive blow out, without so much as a peep about needing to go to the potty.