Potty Training

Praise the Lord, we will have a few months of not buying diapers before baby sister arrives!

For memory’s sake, I’m writing out our girl’s potty training story…

 

Annabelle has been officially potty trained since August and has been doing great. She still has the occasional accident, but she’s done so awesome with it!

I held off even starting to try to potty train with her as long as possible. I was scared to death, to be honest. I’ve read and seen horror stories and I just didn’t think I was going to be woman enough to handle puddle after puddle of tee-tee on the floor, in my car, or heaven-help-us-all, IN PUBLIC. 

My Mom bought AB her first big girl panties just before her 2nd birthday, along with the Elmo Potty Time DVD. Her Nie-Nie, not knowing that Grammy had already bought it, bought Elmo’s potty video for her, too, around the same time. I got the hint loud and clear from the grandmothers, but I still held off.  :)

DW was yelling from the sidelines, “encouraging” us OFTEN to get going on the potty situation… he even promised AB a trip to Disney World to see Mickey Mouse when she started tee-teeing in the potty and wearing her big girl panties all the time. I know, I know, I shook my head, too. But he is a spoiler, he can’t help it… and he’s shameless when it comes to his girls…especially the one who calls him “Daddy.”

In the spring, we tried a few times, but she just wasn’t interested AT ALL. I kept reminding her of her Daddy’s promise, and even found Minnie Mouse hand soap at Target to keep in the bathroom as a reminder. But NOTHING worked. I’d ask her if she wanted to use the big girl potty or wear big girl panties and all I got was, “no fanks, Mommy, me just wear my diapies” Oh, mercy… I just knew we’d be going to kindergarten wearing “diapies.” But, I kept reading to WAIT until they are ready and it would be so much easier. EASIER, you say? Well that’s more my style. So I didn’t push it and we WAITED.

Then, as the summer was coming to an end, I finally decided it was time and if she wasn’t ready she had better get ready, because there was no way we wanted to be buying, or changing, for that matter, diapers for two!

So I made a little “potty chart” on an Excel spreadsheet, taped it up, got some stickers, M & M’s (why yes, I support bribery) and the big girl panties out, and we gave it a shot. She did AMAZING. It totally blew my mind on how “easy” it really was. That first week she had a couple of accidents, but thankfully they were all on non-carpeted surfaces… amen?!

I soon learned that what I had feared was not at all the way it was. In fact, I’d not seen the first puddle! We stayed close to home that week, but by the weekend we had to take a 2 hour trip to Callahan for Carrie’s baby shower. I was scared out of my mind taking her sans diapers in the car for TWO hours and to SOMEONE else’s house!!!! Oh Lord, PLEASE don’t let her leave her first “puddle” at Carrie’s mother-in-law’s house OR in my car… but if it has to be one of the two, let it be my car, PLEASE!!! Would you believe she yells from the backseat, “me need to go pee-pee” about an hour into the trip?!?!? I whipped that car over, pulled out our portable potty and she went right there! I felt like we’d climbed the Mt Everest of the potty training mountains.

Since then, there’s been no stopping her. It really was such a painless and I may regret saying this, but easy thing to do. The worst part has been having to use public restrooms. I have always had a SEVERE phobia of public restrooms. I use them ONLY in dire emergencies, which isn’t often. One day I’ll need bladder reconstruction, I’m sure because of this phobia, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Over the past two months I’ve used more public restrooms than I have my entire life, and I am not kidding. It’s been SOMETHING, but I’ve managed to push through for the sake of my girl, and for the fear of her leaving a puddle on Isle 3 at the Target. Amazing how things change when you have kids.

I’ve held off writing this post, for fear that she would regress and we’d have to go back to diapers, but we’re going strong on two months now, and she got her reward trip to Disney this weekend, so I decided it was time for it to make the blog and go down in our little family’s history book.

For the record, there has yet to be a puddle left anywhere… who knew potty training could be so CLEAN and easy??? I’m already praying it goes as smoothly with baby sister when her time comes.

~amw~