It’s been three weeks since I started teaching Joel how to potty. It’s not working well, to say the least.

For one thing, he doesn’t like his potty; maybe he thinks it’s a little too small for him. He is almost as big as Eric was when Eric was 2-1/2 years old, so it was easier for Eric to sit on the potty compared to Joel. Plus, I was still working and sent Eric to the day care center every weekday, so I suppose Eric also learned a thing or two about going to the potty while he was there. The other issue I had with the potty training is that Joel only knows how to communicate when he wants to poop. He doesn’t signal anything when it comes to him wanting to pee.

It’s only been three weeks, though. I suppose I need to show him the concept of using the potty first before teaching him how to poop in it. Right now, I’m demonstrating to him the use of the potty by throwing his poop into it, then taking him along to the toilet as I cleaned up his potty. That has only happened ten times in the last few weeks, because most of the time when Joel poops, his ah po (Chinese word for grandma) would always beat me to it and cleaned him up. I’ll have to wait until my husband’s parents return to their home before I can hope that Joel’s potty training can work as I planned.