More potty training

Yesterday Sam said, "Mommy potty!" the proceeded to strip his lower half. Then he proceeded to play (for a half hour or so), eat dinner (for a half hour or so) and play some more, all without producing any potty. For the past few weeks Jason and I have been trying to motivate Sam to use the potty some (he hasn't wanted to use it at all) so I started with jelly beans and told Sam he'd get 2 jelly beans. He was not interested in jelly beans. So we said if he started using the potty he would get a car. Still nothing. But last night all of a sudden, after running around half naked for a good hour or two, he ran to the potty, produced some potty and said, "I get a new car!"

To make the event more momentous, Jason took him to Target to pick out a new car. I then made a chart so Sam could start earning stickers to work toward future cars. When the boys got back I told Sam about the system. He earns a sticker every time he uses the potty and when he reaches 5 he gets a new car. Jason had purchased a number of new cars so Sam knew there were some waiting for him. Sam then went to the potty and started straining and grunting to produce more to work toward a car. The poor kid. Jason and I were stifling laughs in the kitchen while Sam was straining and working at producing something, anything. We told him to try reading a book or magazine, but he preferred to strain and grunt. He eventually did pee and earned a sticker and we talked about how many stickers he had remaining. He seemed to understand that he had to get some more stickers for him to receive a new car.

Fast forward to this morning. Jason and Sam went downstairs for breakfast while Matthew and I got ready upstairs. I heard Jason leave and Sam was by himself downstairs. I couldn't hear anything, but figured he was probably eating breakfast or something like that. However, when Matthew and I made our way downstairs, Sam ran over to me and exclaimed, "I get new cars!" He had found the stickers for the potty chart and filled in two rows. I told him that was cheating, but he said it wasn't. Explaining cheating to a two year old is not easy, so I just told him that he had to earn those stickers and they didn't count toward a new car. For some reason, his actions really remind me of Jason...