Why my bathrooms are stocked with Cheerios

So, Owen is 2 and a half now. All the little girls I know from my first mat leave have all been potty trained for months now. (They all seemed to get it right around their second birthday). While Owen has had some potty successes (he's both peed and pooped on the toilet) he is still showing no real interest at all in the process. That kid will walk around with his soaked diaper hanging to his knees, and if asked whether he needs a "change a bum", will tell me "no thank you Mommy". (We're big on the "No, thank you" around here. Sometimes he'll be having a fit about not wanting to do something, and screaming on the floor, but will still be polite: "No, no THANK YOU Mommy!")

After some unsuccessful attempts on the potty, he began to not even want to sit on the toilet. (Even on his Thomas the Tank Engine potty seat!) It was a battle I didn't want to fight, figuring that if he's THAT not into it, I wasn't going to push it! He did go through a phase where he'd ask to sit on the potty at bedtime, AFTER he'd been put to bed - But the time has come to start moving in that direction again, and rather than relying on him telling me, I've started taking him at regular intervals. On the advice of a friend (hi Kristyn!) I've started offering him the chance to pee standing up. We toss a few Cheerios in the bowl, he gets up on his stool so he's over the bowl, and, well, you can picture the rest. I'm hoping the Cheerios will encourage his aim as he progresses. Now instead of asking him to go to the potty (No THANK YOU Mommy!) we tell him it's time to go shoot some Cheerios.

There is a process to what we do:

1. Go into bathroom

2. Owen pushes his stool over to the toilet, and lifts the lid/seat while Mommy prepares the targets.

3. Owen climbs up on the stool, pulls down his pants (mommy helps) and takes aim (mommy sometimes helps here too)

4. Cheerios are sunk!

5. Climb off stool, flush ("Bye bye Cheerios! Bye bye pee")

6. PUT THE SEAT AND THE LID DOWN

7. Push stool over to sink and wash hands (while singing the alphabet song, to ensure we wash them enough).

8. Owen gets a few "gummy bears" (fruit snacks) as a reward.

I'm hoping the reward part will eventually encourage him to start asking to go on his own. We give him 3 treats for a pee, 5 for a poop, and he even gets 1 just for "trying", even if nothing happens. It went well over the weekend, and on Monday, he stayed dry until naptime. Then my timing was off, so the evening didn't work out as well. I'm hoping when he's home Friday/Sat/Sun/Mon we'll be able to get into a rhythm so that Patty will be able to pick up where we leave off on Tuesday when he's at her house. But in the meantime, there are Tupperware containers of Cheerios in the bathroom, and I'm proud to say that my son has put the seat down every time so far. :)