Potty Training: Take One, and Two

We had been building up to the big day for a while. We had Matthew pick out his Mickey Mouse undies, we bought the jelly bellies for his candy machine, and talked a lot about it. I strategically chose to start after Christmas when I knew we would be home for a while with nothing going on and Justin would be around for a few days. So, the big day came. We explained that Matthew would get a penny each time he went potty to put in his candy machine, and he would get to put a sticker on his potty chart. When he filled up the chart we were going to the Aquarium! The first day was a little rough, but I expected that. My biggest concern was that Matthew didn't seem to care in the slightest when he peed in his pants. So, the next few days we just went naked from the waste down. This worked great! Matthew didn't like peeing on his leg and he quickly learned to stop it and run to the potty. On day 5 we even starting having success pooping in the potty! Things were going great. Matthew was on track to filling his potty chart by Friday, and Grandma was coming in town so she was going to get to come to the Aquarium with us.
Then, we got a very sad and unexpected phone call Thursday night from my parents telling us that my cousin had died. We packed our bags and Friday afternoon were headed to Idaho for 8 days. Things were a little chaotic. We were spending every day over at my aunt and uncles house and needless to say Matthew wasn't getting the constant attention a potty training 2 year old needs. We tried to stay up on it, but after the 4th nasty poop episode at my aunts house-I was done. This was not the time to deal with potty training. So, we went back to pull ups. I would still take Matthew to the bathroom occasionally, but the longer he was in pull ups the less he was holding it and he started just going whenever again.
When we finally came back home I thought we would just jump right back into it: Think Again! Matthew no longer saw the excitement of undies. His attitude was: Why wear underwear and have to go to the bathroom if I can just wear pull ups and not worry about it? So after a few rough days, I bagged it. Justin was out of town for the weekend and I was not ready to deal with it. I took a few days to re-coupe and I made a sweet train tracks potty chart and a behavior incentive chart thing for pooping. We needed another package of underwear so Matthew got to pick out some train undies, and we started the whole adventure over again.
It was not as hard the second time to get back into it, although it didn't happen overnight; it still took about a week. As long as I take Matthew to the bathroom about every 2 hours we don't have any accidents. Pooping was not going as well though. By the end of that first week, we still had had no success. So as part of our date night, Justin and I went shopping for something train that would motivate Matthew. We ended up with a cool remote control train engine. We showed it to Matthew and put it out in the family room where he couldn't reach it and explained that he had to go poop in the potty if he wanted to get the train. It still took 2 days, but finally he did it! We have still had a few accidents in that department but they are definitely getting fewer and farther between. He has stayed dry during naps from day 1. He has started staying drying at night, almost every day. I am not quite ready to let him wear undies at night though, but we are getting close.
So in short, Matthew is more or less potty trained...and it only took us a month to get there ; ) We are not 100% but hey, I already saved myself one month of diapers!
When Matthew gets to the train station on his chart he gets something. The first time it was a little train book, and the second time we got to go ride the train they have at the mall! He has been in train heaven lately.