Potty training already?

I had a funny experience this evening, related to William and potty training, as you can probably guess from the title.

Greg went out to a happy hour for a visiting colleague from Chennai. We were all supposed to go, but I was just pooped (no pun intended) by the end of the day on the visa line. So, I opted to stay home with William.

Lately, he's been pretty curious about potties and pee pee and poo poo and such things. Hoping to make potty training relatively easy whenever it's time (I have no idea how to do this, after all), I generally use his curiosity to explain about going to the potty. Today, though, he took it one step further and went and sat down on his little training potty all on his own. So, I explained that he had to take his diaper off if he wanted to go to the potty. While he is very verbal, I am still not sure how much he understands what I say, but apparently this time he understood it all. He said to me: "Mama, diaper, off!"

So, off came the diaper. What else was I supposed to do?

Then he sat down on his little potty, but no pee pee came out, even though he kept looking for it. I don't think he quite understands the concept yet, you see. After a few minutes, he was bored of just sitting there and ran over to the bookshelf for his Freight Train book. So, then we sat for another 10 minutes or so, William on the potty, me reading the book to him. But still no pee pee.

Needless to say, 10 minutes of one story is about the extent of his attention span. He then got up and started to run around! I tried to explain he needed his diaper if he wasn't going to sit on the potty, but all I got in return was: "No! No! No!" Yes, that word is definitely mastered.

The next 45 minutes were a little tense for me - William would run around the house a little bit, then go sit on the potty again. Then up and about, then on the potty again. Again and again. No pee pee ever made it into the potty - but none ever made it onto the floor, either, thankfully. And, eventually he got bored of the game (?) and let me put his diaper on him when he was distracted by another toy. I could again breathe easily.

As an end note, about an hour later when we were starting to walk upstairs to bed, he stopped, looked at me, grabbed his diaper, and said "pee pee, Mama." Was he actually going? Who knows. But, I think he may be starting to understand the concept and, if so, that will certainly make the potty training process easier.