Background: for the past month+ (at least) Aiden has sporadically been using the potty. I'll keep him naked on the bottom while we get ready, eat breakfast etc and he uses the potty like a pro. Well....this week I decided to see what would happen if I put underwear and pants on him. Not so good! After (I'm really not exaggerating) 6 accidents in about an hour, I figured it was either GO time or give up time (back to diapers and pull ups).

We have nothing going on Wednesdays so I decided to throw Aiden and his brothers a little potty party to see if that would sort of push A in the right direction. I had actually called and sought the advice of the triage nurse at our pediatrician's office and she was less than helpful. She said that she also has a little boy ready to potty train and maybe we could exchange ideas....like we were buddies instead of she, a medical professional who could point me in a good direction, and I, a mother with a need for info. It was a fun, but unproductive chat.


annnnyway....back to the party. We all know I have a tendency to over-do things (or rather...do things with a wave of full force and passion <-- that's my glass 1/2 full statement!) Soooooo.....I had a TON of things planned. I came up with most of my ideas last minute, around 5pm Tuesday night while laying in the steam room at the gym. After leaving the steam room and before picking up the boys from the playroom, I placed a call to Party City and ordered a few balloons....ok....like 12 balloons. Then we ran to Michael's craft store and the grocery store for supplies.

At Michael's, we picked up a bunch of stuff. They have kid's tee shirts there for crafting (painting, bedazzling....whatever) and they were all on sale for $1.99. I wanted to buy a big one for Aiden so that he could run around, even in our back yard, with no pants on and not scare the neighbors. Since they were so cheap, I bought a shirt for all three boys so that it felt like more of a team event. I also bought shrinky dink stuff to make potty party "medallions" (read: necklaces...for boys)

At the grocery store, we picked up fruit, a cake mix, frosting, sprinkles and blue icing.

Our day: We started the day with pancakes shaped like P's (pee and party and potty). I added chocolate chips as well (use your imagination)
Aiden requested pancakes shaped like balloons...I did my best :)
Choco-baby!
Playing off of Aiden's recent LOVE of Easter and egg hunting, I filled 10 plastic eggs with a little candy and some quarters. Each egg was designed to be split between Logan and Aiden. I hid them in crazy places where the boys would never find them without my help. The rule was that if EITHER boy went to the potty....I would tell them where to find an egg and they could share the contents (and put the money in their little "good day" banks...Logan's is a soccer ball, Aiden has a basketball and there is even a football one in Brady's room for the future <-- yeah for the Target $1 spot...I love that section!!).

The balloons had super long strings one them. My idea: tie them in bunches around the house like we do for birthday parties. The boys' idea: decorate the 2-story ceiling in the living room! I got a bunch of latex balloons plus three mylar star ones: green for L, blue for A and red for Brady (I sure hope that kid likes red...it's the only boyish color not already claimed)
Aiden has been eyeing these snack pack things at the grocery store lately so I let him pick them out for a special snack.

I used a small cup to draw the circles for our potty party medallions onto shrinky dink paper. I haven't used shrinky dinks in forever and I wasn't sure how small they would get so I went with "bigger than you would think"....which turned out perfectly in the end! We colored these, punched a hole in each one and baked them.

Ryan and MacKenzie wondered down to our yard and make a necklace too. Here are the kids looking into the bottom oven watching the shrinking take place.

Done! Amazing how small they got!! I wanted to do this for our potty party because I already have a craft planned in my head for Aiden's birthday (which will be in July). We're doing another get messy party, but I want to decorate with a Hawaiian tiki man theme. My craft idea is to make tiki necklaces with shrinky dinks (a la the Brady Bunch!)

Here are kids playing with silly string in the yard.

Aiden got a bit on his head....I may have been the one to put it there :) Boy those cans of spray foam don't last very long!!

Afternoon picnic with Aiden's favorite (and Logan's too) - grilled cheese. Logan congratulated me on not burning it this time.

Here is a close-up of Aiden's potty party necklace. He used lots of different colored beads...

...Logan went with a green medallion surrounded by two simple green beads.

After naps, we made potty party cup cakes.

Brady helped too! He truly thinks he is at least as old as Aiden.

When we planned the party, I was talking about how we were going to have cupcakes and hunt for eggs etc. Logan looked at me and said "mommy....I don't want JUST sugary stuff....can we have a fruit plate?" So...our afternoon snack was a big fruit plate (we apparently did a lot of eating at our potty party!!)

Finally it was time to decorate the cupcakes.

Brady mostly just ate his!

Here is Logan's: how about some cupcake with those toppings?! We even made one for daddy, but I forgot to tell him about it so it's still in the fridge (I'm finishing this post on Monday)

And the verdict?? Not as positive as I had hoped. We kept Aiden naked on the bottom for the next couple of days or reminded him to use the potty when he was wearing pants. It seems the more we talk to him about it, the less he wants to do it (this happened with Logan too). We sort of gave up on Saturday, but then he went to the bathroom without us asking three times that day. (shrug) We'll give it another go right around his actual birthday (July 10th). It was a fun party though....we all had a great day so it was well worth the effort...maybe we won't do that ALL again in July....I think we made a lot of progress that we'll build on later! A for effort!!