Day 1, hour 1 - our first "success"

Having never done this before and really, having no idea what I'm doing, my plan was to set the kitchen timer for every hour, ask him if he needed to go potty, and sit him on it every time the timer goes off.  I shut the doors to the rooms with carpet and moved all of Henry's favorite toys into the main room (which is hard wood) or the porch.  I put the potty out in the main room for convenience and fed my boy some breakfast out on the porch.  I told him that if he has to go pee pee or poopy that he needs to come in and tell mommy then sit on the potty.  About 10 minutes after he started breakfast, he came back in, stood in the door way and said, "doo doo" then walked over to the potty.  I couldn't believe it!  Was this going to actually work?

I asked him if he needed to go poopy or pee pee and helped him get centered on the potty.  He sat there for about a minute then tried to get up.  I encouraged him to sit back down and asked if he wanted the iPad.  Of course he did.  He exclaimed, "bye-bah!" (which is how he says iPad).  I told him to stay right where he is and mommy would get him the iPad.  I ran into the bedroom, grabbed the iPad and came back out to find him exactly where I'd left him.  I gave him the iPad and sat with him for a few minutes, keeping my fingers tightly crossed.  Nothing.  But I really didn't expect him to poop on the potty in the first 10 minutes of us trying potty training.  So I wasn't disappointed or anything.

I got up to go back to my business and when I did, Henry tried to follow.  Actually, he tried to get up and go sit in his little red arm chair.  I told him that he's only allowed to use the iPad while he's sitting on the potty, so he promptly sat back down and settled in for a good watch.  A few minutes later, he got up again, set the iPad down and stuck his hand in the potty.  I thought he needed help with the iPad but when I went over to him, I found that he'd gone pee pee in the potty!!  Hooray!  I scooped him up and we did a dance and I gave him a little goldfish cookie. We went and told daddy, washed his hands, and emptied out Henry's potty into the big potty together.

And then we came back into the main room and reset the timer and I got to wondering if what I'm doing is a good idea.  I mean, I have no idea if he even knew that he peed or understood what I was celebrating.  I don't know if having him sit on the potty for 20 minutes before he pees is effective at all.  I just don't know if doing it this way is going to make the connection for him or not.  I guess we'll find out.

Here's a pic of him "trying":