Potty. Trained.

We have been working on potty training in our house for a while. Our little dude decided sitting on the pot was a cool thing to do last summer, and we arrogantly figured that in his obviously genius state it would only be a month or two before he was out of diapers and going about his "business" like a big kid. Wrong. Rookie parenting mistake. Nine months of reinforcing peeing in the potty with jellybeans later we were no closer to wearing undies, and the only thing our genius child had learned to do was manipulate our desire for him to use the potty into stretching out bedtime, delaying nap-time, and earning as many beans as possible. A master negotiator, Wheeler would shut down mid stream request his bean, eat it, then push out some more and demand another bean for his efforts. After we wised up and closed the free bean factory interest in using the potty diminished almost completely. Not wanting to scare him off we figured we would back off, stay encouraging but positive, and he would show us when he was a little bit more ready. Well... that proof of readiness came like a smack in the face the Sunday Wheeler decided to fake a dirty diaper to get out of nursery class.  This kid knew exactly what he was doing and was playing hard ball... and since both of his parents share his competitive genes, we stepped up to the plate. Undies were purchased and a giant box of favorite Cars characters was placed on the ledge beside the toilet. The deal was as follows: You can open one car for keeping your undies dry all day long, and one car for pooping in the potty. 3 weeks later all the cars on the ledge are earned. Diapers are gone (except for nighttime) Accidents are few and far between, and we are basking in the next 4 1/2 months until we get to start changing dirty diapers all over again.