Oregon Zoo

I have been working really hard with Jonathan on his potty training (seems like forever now!) He has been doing really well during the day for a long time now. His only daytime accidents are usually when we are out and about and can't find a bathroom fast enough....or he is playing and refuses to stop! This happens pretty rarely though, so I hardly even worry about it (I mean like, maybe once every other week or so). Night time was another story and pretty inconsistent. I thought about doing a sticker chart for a while, but I questioned whether he was old enough to understand what he was doing to earn a sticker and what the reward would be. I decided to give it a shot and found some cute Toy Story stickers at the store and made a chart (not my best, but it worked!). It took him a couple of days to really understand why he was getting a sticker in the morning, but once he got it he was all over it. I mean, don't get me wrong, the 2 year old waking you up at 4am to go potty is annoying, but he was getting it so I can't get mad right?! I would ask him several times a day "what do you get if you don't go potty in your pull up?" and he would say "a ticker!" Then I would ask "and what do you get when you have 30 stickers?" and he would jump up and down and say "da zoooo!!!!" It was so stinkin' cute! Well, the day was approaching and I was getting a little concerned about the weather (you know how it rains around here!), but I kept my fingers crossed that the forecast would be correct. Last Thursday morning he woke up for his 30th dry morning (not consecutive, but cumulative) and it was dry outside, too, so we were off to the zoo. Grandma Candy got to come along and Jonathan was the cutest little stinker there. It wasn't too cold (once we got ourselves some hot chocolate--ok, maybe it was pretty freezing!) and there was hardly anyone there. The only bummer was the closure of the penguins for some repair work and the lack of hippos. The two animals Jonathan was most excited to see. (Ok, penguins I get, but the hippo is a mystery to me. I don't understand why he likes them so much.) Reagan was an angel and stayed all bundled up in the stroller just laughing at our antics and enjoying the ride. In the end I let Jonathan pick out a prize and he chose the cutest little "cartoon" animal figures. They are his "guys" and he has carried them everywhere. Well, almost all of them. He won't carry the cheetah with the rest of them. When I asked him why he said "he peed. ucky! No play, mama." Too funny! How does a toy animal "pee," is my question.

Now Jonathan says that he is a big boy and I have let him start sleeping in "unnerware" and so far so good! Loving that I won't be buying pull-ups anymore;) Good job Jonathan!!!!

P.S. Don't you just love the "smile" in the upper left corner pic? That is the face he makes now when I tell him to smile for a picture. I could just eat him up!