Potty Training - Just the Beginning

We were never sure when to officially start potty training with Oliver.  Since this milestone is by a long shot our least favorite part of parenting in the early childhood years, (like, leaps and bounds ahead of even dealing with tantrums) we weren't particularly motivated to start.  We've been in the toilet awareness phase for a few months now, where Oliver can tell us when he's gone, is interested in when mom and dad use the toilet, and loves making a game out of sitting on his potty chair.  But we've never put any formal toilet-training strategy in place.  The most we've done is remind him during diaper changes that he should tell us he needs to go and we'll let him sit on the potty.  Otherwise, we seem to be letting Oliver potty-train himself and hope he just magically gets the hang of it.

Tonight he announced that he wanted to go upstairs and use the potty.  Since he usually goes off and hides to do his business, I thought maybe there was some seriousness to his request, so we trekked upstairs. 

Low and behold, he went on the potty!  I had one of those I-know-I've-become-a-parent moments when I clapped and cheered at the sight of poop in the bowl of his toilet chair. 

My excitement quickly waned when Oliver wanted to try again, and I had to concentrate on keeping myself from gagging while dumping the contents into the regular toilet.  I deal with my kids' poop every day, but for some reason this variation of cleaning up after my kids' bodily fluids was almost too much to handle.