Potty progress after a hiatus and Turn on your lovelight

WARNING: gruesome potty details below.

Since I have been working full time, we have not been able to stick with elimination communication with Alder. The combination of bipedal locomotion, hardheadedness, and a total lack on consistency have not really been a recipe for successful communication on several fronts, especially regarding his elimination. When we are with Alder, he wears cloth diapers and they are changed frequently so he does not become accustomed to feeling wet, we recently started changing him in the bathroom standing up (unless it was too messy), and continue to talk to him about how he had just gone 'tee tee' or 'poo poo' in his diaper and to maybe try the potty next time....

The major progress started a couple of weeks ago when we bought a stool to go next to the potty. Whenever he would wake up from a nap or in the morning with a dry diaper (which is pretty often) we would take him into the bathroom and stand him on the stool, make the sign for potty and the same cue we have done since he was 6 months old ('ssssssss'). Sometimes he protests for a few seconds, but then he stands still, concentrates and then smiles proudly as he hears his tee tee hit the water. When we spend entire days with him, we offer the potty every hour or two especially after returning home from errands, getting down from eating, coming in after playing, and he has been increasingly cooperative. We are anxious for him to answer yes and no to questions - are you hungry, do you need to go tee tee, etc. Not sure why this has not clicked yet because his vocabulary is growing by the day!

So, we recognize this might not last b/c it is tough to make progress when he is in daycare, but we are excited nonetheless and thought we might brag a bit. From Friday morning to Sunday evening, we had more elimination in the potty than in a diapers! I even got him to go at 2am last night when he woke up for a sip of water and to be rocked a bit!

Oh, and here is Alder moving pom poms from one bowl to another - an idea we got from a Montessori school we have been visiting. He concentrated on this for awhile.

Reading books with 'dada'

And as a reward for making it through all that...here is Alder shakin' his booty again! Warning - it is about 3 minutes with music in the background. Just so you all know, we have not taught Alder any of these moves...I suppose it is just innate....