climbing the toilet

Jed has been potty trained for over a year now but has struggled sitting on the toilet the correct way that entire time. He faces the tank, like he's riding a horse. This is effective but frustrating because it means that he has to take off all the clothes on his lower half. And it means that any public toilet receives a faithful going-over. I have struggled for a while to help him dress himself once he has gone potty, and he has gotten to the point where he can put everything on by himself with lots of encouragement. But he needs to stand up to pee and sit correctly on the potty if he's going to do some sort of preschool program (I am still wrestling with this--stay tuned). So, my mom and I set about helping Jed use the toilet the right way.

He got the hang of peeing standing up pretty quickly. He still doesn't like to touch his "dude"--he will instead stand like a race horse and lean way over the potty--but he is a champ at that now. He is even willing to pee in public restrooms the right way! Climbing on the toilet has been a different beast altogether. For a while he found this very creative way of mounting the potty:

I never actually got to see this method of climbing on the potty, since we were in the hospital at the time. My mom said she was always afraid he was going to fall in head first. He only did this for a couple of days. He gets on the regular way now and does a great job dressing himself afterwards. It's amazing what some encouragement, someone who isn't too tired to help him every time he has to go to do it correctly, and some gum balls and stickers can accomplish. Yay Jed!