He did it.
He pooped in the potty.

Sixteen months after his first pee on the potty, almost four months after moving into big boy pants, and two months after I first considered throwing in the poop towel, he finally did it.

It went like this: he started making his high-pitched whine that he does when he realizes that poop is near, and more importantly, that he cannot hold it back any longer. This is very stressful to him because he doesn't want to use the potty, but he knows that using his pants is "bad." We have been in this bad place for so long.

So I picked him up and carried him to the potty, which I have done before, and which always results in disaster. What happens usually is he freaks out that he is being "forced" to go on the potty, and he holds it in. Or he just has such a huge tantrum that I can't get him to actually sit on the potty. So I don't know why I tried this tactic again.

We got there, and I told him it was OK. He freaked out. I hugged him a little, offered more kind words. He continued to freak out. I pulled his pants down and he freaked out some more. Man, I feel like I am doing some horrible thing. Then we stood there for like 20 seconds as he squatted over the floor, me afraid to move too suddenly, him looking quite uncomfortable, and then I just put him on the toilet seat. Literally 2 seconds later, he got this weird look on his face, then turned around and looked into the potty. He said, "I did it mommy!"

Hubby ran into the bathroom, and the three of us jumped up and down for like 10 minutes. I could see a tear in hubby's eye.

We let Charlie pick out a Hot Wheel car from the box of dusty new cars that were waiting for this very day. He was giddy. We called nana and Aunt Katie. Every few moments, all evening long, he giggled and looked so proud of himself.

Our poop intervention finally worked.