Potty Training Day 4.5 - Throwing in the Towel

Due to the extreme horror and difficulty of the current day, a time out has been called for potty training.
Yesterday was day three. Yesterday was a bad day all around,  not just for potty training. Yesterday included spitting, throwing, screaming, back talking and very little time on the potty. Carroll and I decided to call it a pass day and start this morning on day four using the training underwear instead of pull-ups. Here’s what I learned today:
Seth has almost all the required skills for potty training. He can pull down his pants, he can tell us when he needs to potty, and he can follow simple directions when he chooses to. Yet we had the morning from hell where it all seemed to go wrong. We start first thing with a trip to the potty and the only time we used the potty today. We talk about our big boy underwear and what will happen if he pees in it as well as what he needs to do. I repeatedly ask him if he needs to potty. Finally it’s almost nap time and we sit on the potty and Seth says he needs to pee. After five minutes of standing up, sitting down, playing with the flusher, and repeat he goes to nap time without peeing. Sure enough a half hour later he has peed his pants and does not like it. I clean him up, sit him on the potty again (still nothing), put fresh underwear on, talk again a out the potty, and put him back in a clean bed for his nap. He then says he has to poop. We repeat the bathroom dance with nothing ending up in the toilet again and Seth going back to bed. The adults do some housework while Seth isn’t underfoot and he is quiet. Twenty minutes later I go check on him and walk into a horrible, smelly scene. He pooped in his big boy underwear, smeared the poop down his legs removing the underwear, and spread the poop around his bed for good measure. After another clean up, involving a shower this time, Seth went back into a diaper for a few days. We decided the frustration level had outweighed the compliance level for the moment.
As a bonus we now know which skills Seth has on board and we will start off on better footing next week. Tor this week though, we surrender to the toddler.