Adventures in Potty Training

I began my adventures in the dreaded journey of potty training this week. Baby Girl is 26 months old, the same age as my first son when he was trained. The middle two were a bit older. But Baby Girl has shown many signs that she's ready so I decided to give it a go.

The first step was to gather my supplies:

• Potty chair (no clue what happened to the one I used last time)


• Adorable panties (she chose Yo Gabba Gabba and Dora the Explorer themes, which she insisted on wearing on her head through TJ Maxx - thanks for that, Daddy! Excuse the crappy cell phone pic of this lovely display of undies)


• My copy of Toilet Training in Less than a Day by Nathan H. Azrin, Ph.D. and Richard M. Foxx, Ph.D (it's a little outdated, mentioning things like Captain Kangaroo, but the method is still highly effective)


• M&Ms and mini marshmallows (for reward purposes....I promise, I didn't eat even one!)


• Sippy cups full of various drinks (no fruit juice...I didn't want to diarrhea train at the same time)


• A slew of toys to keep the trainee occupied and confined to the kitchen (potty is much easier to clean up on the kitchen floor than on carpet!)


• Lysol wipes (wow....they didn't have these when I trained the other kids...they really came in handy!)

Yesterday morning was D-Day. I don't know why I was dreading this challenge. You'd think I'd be a pro by now...I've successfully trained three other kids. But I was kind of freaking out about this. Maybe it's because this event confirms that my final child is no longer a baby. I struggle with the fact that I'll never cradle a newborn of my own again.

To put it mildly, the beginning was pretty rough. The first half hour, Baby Girl was enthralled with the new potty, she wanted to sit, stand, sit, stand and open and shut the lid. I was paranoid she was going to spill the few tablespoons of liquid already in the potty...she was not thrilled with me emptying it after every little tinkle. Then, she got to the point where she refused to sit on the potty or wear panties. I became firm and demanded that it was one or the other. She finally resorted and did both, alternately. I longed for her nap time to arrive for a much needed sanity break! Of course, I put her back in a diaper for nap...we don't have Pull-Ups yet (I hate them anyway).

After nap, things went extremely well. She had very limited accidents and finally started to pick up on the fact that she was rewarded with a mini marshmallow every time she did itty-bitty tinkles on the potty. Then it was time to pick up her siblings from school. I debated about how to handle this task. If I put her in a diaper, I just might ruin all my work up to this point. So I decided to take a chance with panties. I did grab a baby lap pad to place between those tiny panties and her car seat. To my amazement, she made it there and back without an accident (twice...junior high gets out before elementary school)! But once the kids were home, things took a turn for the worse. She was too focused on playing with them and started having frequent accidents. I finally banned them from the first floor of the house and told them to leave us alone. That worked.

She had her last accident of the night around 5:30 PM; she even made it through dinner. But she was hesitant to go potty after dinner so probably let out a bladderful as soon as I diapered her for the night.

I was very proud of our success up to this point. The key is perseverance. You don't know how tired I was of sitting on that hard wood floor all day. There were so many things I knew I could be doing. She tried my patience on multiple occasions but I didn't throw in the towel. Hopefully today will go even better and we will be on the road to a DIAPER-FREE HOME soon!!! OK, those three words were enough to give me the necessary strength to make it through this!!!