Andrew at Bedtime

A couple of days ago I pulled out two (identical) little potty chairs from the closet. They look like a little white throne with a removable black potty insert to catch the kid's output. I'd bought them for Alison, who never was interested in them and went straight to sitting on the potty on a little ring that made the seat smaller. I figured that nowadays, while Ali sits on the toilet at bed time Andrew could sit on his potty and start to get the idea.

Andrew was absolutely delighted. He loves his "pee-pee" (that's what he calls the potty) and wants it in whatever room he happens to be in. At bedtime he sits on the pee-pee fully pajama'ed while I read him his bedtime stories. In the morning he wants to drag it down to the living room. Today he spent half of the time playing with Cassie (his early intervention teacher) while sitting on the potty seat.

In the last couple of weeks Andrew's bedtime routine has gotten difficult again. It's as though he knows he's turned two and should rebel. Until he discovered he could climb out of the crib bedtime was easy -- we'd just plunk him in the crib and he'd play quite happily until he conked out. We had a bit of difficulty immediately after he learned to climb out of the crib, but then things settled down again fairly quickly. Until recently.

Well, tonight was actually pretty good. Admittedly we started a little later than usual, but after minimal fussing I left him and went off to do my 30 minutes of exercise leaving him reading the "Sesame Street Wheels on the Bus" book to his duck in bed.

30 minutes later I get off the elliptical machine and walk past his room. This is what I see:

Andrew, in bed, which was pretty full of toys and books, sitting on his potty chair (yes, that was on the bed too), with the insert on his head like a hat, head tipped back, drinking water from his sippy cup. I wish I'd had a camera. I got a picture shortly thereafter, but the "hat" had been reinserted into its location in the seat, and the sippy cup was just sitting on the bed.