"All by myself"

That's Jack's newest and very well used line. He says it all the time to Stephen and me. For example, last night when we were eating dinner, Jack decided it was time to go #2. He got up from his chair and told us that he was going upstairs to the potty to make the poo poo come out and he was going all by himself. He instructed us to keep eating dinner. Umm... okay. I trailed him up the stairs and watched him go into his bathroom and shut the door. I asked if he might need my help with his pants. He said "nope." About one minute later he yelled down for me to help him with his pants. So I helped him take off his pants and diaper... and offered to help him up on the potty. Yep, you guessed it - he said he was going to do it by himself. And he did. He squirmed up onto the Elmo potty and told me to go eat dinner. So I shut the door behind me and went downstairs.

About five minutes later he yelled down that "he did it!" and that he wanted to show us the fruits of his labor. Stephen and I indulged his request and ran upstairs to check out Jack's deposit. It was a big one - and there was one more thing. Jack tried to wipe himself. Umm... ick. He did a good job trying but needs to refine some of his skills before we let him do this on his own. A little soap, a little water and voila - we had a very proud two and a half year old come back down for a little dinner.