We've seen Santa!

Monday the kids and I went to Concord Mills to do some heavy-duty Christmas shopping. And of course to see Santa. Now Santa looks kind of sketchy in this picture, but he was actually a great guy. He and Seth had quite the conversation (see below)...Amelia was a little less impressed, but shaking a jingle bell distracted her from screaming her head off long enough to get a picture. Their conversation started like this:

"So, what have you been up to this year?"
"I a big boy now. I poop in a potty and you bring me toys!"
(Santa blinks twice.) "Well come here and tell me all about it!"

Here's the thing...just when I think I am going to go insane waiting for Seth to meet the next milestone, he up and does it, and I look back and realize I would have saved myself a lot of grief if I would just stress about it less. After Seth's big mess, I had told him it was the last straw. He started running to his room and changing his own Pull-Ups, which was a step in the right direction, but still messy. The week before Thanksgiving I told him that Santa was going to bring him diapers if he wasn't trying his best to be a big boy. We didn't want to pressure him too much, but no other incentive had worked. On Thanksgiving Day, Lisa somehow got him on the potty at just the right time, we had success, and a ton of praise, and he's been telling people how much he loves to poop on the potty ever since. I think we can officially call the boy potty-trained. Finally. Hurray! The best part of all is our sweet silly Seth is back again...he must have been frustrated about it, too.

Never thought you'd get all that from a Santa picture, huh?