My own little Pavlov

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Tonight Joshua peed in the potty seat we bought him. Did you read that people?

JOSHUA WENT PEE-PEE POTTY.

I have absolutely zero delusions that this will happen again anytime soon. None. At all.

But tonight? It happened. And it only cost me one blue m&m so far.

We bought a potty seat on a whim about two months ago and realized as soon as we got it out of the box that we’d bought the worst potty seat for little boys ever made. There was no splash guard on this potty seat, you see, so he sat down on it and…well…I’m infinitely glad he didn’t pee on the potty the very first time we put him on one.

That potty seat is now a tooth-brushing stool in front of the sink. And if you say “jump on the stool” he will try to jump. Onto the stool. And not pretty things like him nearly smacking his teeth out on the vanity will ensue.

So we bought another potty seat after Dan did some research. The Bjorn seat. Because SPLASH GUARD, y’all!

(And no, that’s not an Amazon affiliate link, so I’ll get nothing if you go ahead and purchase one for your boy, too. We got the yellow one because it’s bright and cheery! And the color of pee!)

My college psych professor used his daughters as examples of Classical conditioning by describing his process of potty training them with m&ms. And that guy was weird. And smart. Like Ben Stein. And the Pavlov dogs figured it out and my kid is WAY smarter than my dog, so m&ms sounded like a fantastic idea.

We’ve been asking him if he wants to sit on the potty seat when we get him naked for bath time each night. Sometimes he happily plops his skinny little butt down on the seat and sits there on his throne and plays trains and eats an m&m.

Lately, he gets all histrionic and says “NO! NO SIT PODDY SEEEE!!!” And we’re all “Hoookay, kid! Simmer!” Because I will do nearly anything to stop that rapidly accelerating meltdown.

But then I had a moment of “I dunno…maybe we shouldn’t make him think he can get a candy every time he sits on the potty because he’ll only pee when he wants candy and not because he has to pee.” So we were completely rethinking this strategy of bribing for pee.

But tonight he asked to sit on the potty. HE ASKED TO SIT ON THE POTTY. So I stripped his clothes off and down he sat. Then he said “Caaa-eee??” So while Dan ran his bath water, I went to the kitchen to get the m&m. And on my walk there, I hear Dan start saying “YAY JOSHIE! JOSHIE PEE PEE POTTY! YAY!”

And Joshua’s all “Dude. Where’s my candy?”

He had completely zero idea that the pee earned him the candy and totally thought the sitting was key. So half-winning?

When we trained the dog, we gave her the treat WHILE she was doing her business, so I think I’m going to have to start going to the bathroom prepared with treats in my pocket.

Because I draw the line at storing the m&ms IN the bathroom. I mean, poop particles say it all, right?