Potty training hits all mother’s at some point in time. Some of us have a more relaxed style of mothering and wait until our child is ready and willing. Others may take advantage of our child’s awareness of their bodily functions. And if you are like me, made plenty of mistakes with your first child since he or she was your guinea pig!
My mother was of the generation that you potty trained a child before they were a year, so that meant that she had the four of us toilet trained well before we were two. But she was consistent and patient. Our “magical” age seems to be two-ish, either slightly before or slightly after the age of two.
We are currently potty training our son. Summer time is perfect, plus we have a baby coming in 8 and a half weeks, so we have been relaxed, but creatively educating and trying to help our son move further along with this training adventure. 
What are our tricks? Elmo. Yes, this beloved Sesame Street character is a true motivator for our son. We splurged and bought him Elmo underwear (our oldest loved Elmo too at his age, which is pretty ironic). At first he didn’t have many accidents, then he did. But he loves his big boy underwear. At night he is pretty loathe to put on his bulky cloth diaper.
Then we found this video about Elmo as a little tike and his Daddy called “Potty Time”. Let’s just say that Noah loves this video, as he does all the other Elmo videos we have let him watch. The thing is it seems to be helping him be more aware of when he needs to go. Just by watching it once a day. This week he made it to the potty twice for a bowel movement and last night he made it there to go pee. Other times he has ran, but ends up going just as he reaches the potty. So he has definitely been trying and totally gets the concept of going on the toilet. We have hope that he will be trained by fall, but are taking it as it comes.
For all other Elmo fans and mothers in the throws of potty training, check out Elmo in his Potty Time video…beware the song is pretty catchy and you might just find yourself singing along after awhile!
