Potty Training Trouble

I hate changing diapers. I couldn’t wait until my son turned 3 because I was sure that he would be potty trained and out of diapers. When that day came and went, I hoped that he would be potty trained for the first day of preschool. Well, that day came and went also. He is now 4 months away from his 4th birthday and we are no closer to being potty trained than they day we welcomed him into this world. I keep waiting for that miracle moment when he is ready, when he comes to me and says, “Mommy, I need to use the potty.” But I don’t know how much longer I can wait.
I have read everything there is on potty training and spoken to his pediatrician who assures me that my son will learn in his own good time and that lots of boys are not potty trained at this age. Well, that may be true, but I don’t know of any! We have tried rewards including stickers, stamps, potty charts, play- time on the computer, m & m’s. Nothing has worked. I tried taking him to the potty every hour and making him sit, hoping he would do something. But he wouldn’t sit still unless I stayed with him and I could only sit on the bathroom floor for so long. We remind him constantly to tell us when he needs to go potty and he never does. And even when we ask him if he pooped or peed in his diaper, he usually tells us no. We tried having him wear underpants but what a mess! After a few days of that, we went back to diapers. I wonder if he even realizes what it feels like to go number 1 or number 2 or is he just so absorbed in being a 3 year old that he doesn’t have time to worry about it?
Well, I worry about it. I don’t want to push him too hard because I understand that might just make him resist even more. But I also don’t want to have the only child in school who still wears diapers (even though he is the only one right now). And did I mention that I hate changing diapers?
We have had a recent breakthrough of sorts. Instead of insisting that big boys wear diapers, he now states that big boys wear underpants. That doesn’t mean that he is ready to lose the diapers yet but maybe we are getting closer. He does take great pride in picking out a pair of big boy underpants each day which he wears, yes, over top of his diapers! To be continued…