"You Put Your Body on the Potty 'Cause it's Potty Time"

I'll spare you the whole saga of potty training Elizabeth. Let's just say she has the skills but has not been interested in cooperating. And yes, she'll be three on the 15th. If you want more details see my "F-L-O-R-I-D-A" post from August. I don't know how to link it so you'd have to do the legwork. Anyway, this week we have had some success and I would be no kind of Mama if I didn't shout it far and wide. See, I've been keeping the poor thing in a crib. She has had the ability to climb out for a good year now, but it never occurred to her to actually do it. And I like knowing where she is at night. But I had an epiphany.

Well, it wasn't my epiphany actually. Or at least I didn't come up with it myself. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I'm a big fan of the Babies and Moms Birth and Beyond podcast. I even was a guest on an episode which was probably more thrilling to me than is reasonable. The podcast is a group of Utah moms who review products for kids and discuss all sorts of topics about parenting. Well, they had this delightful woman named Narmin on a show last week. Narmin runs a site about potty training, which can be found at http://www.potty-training-in-one-day.com/ . Well, that was nice, I was wondering how to link that, but it just happened automatically. It's not as pretty as the way I see it elsewhere, but I suspect it will be effective. Well, if that is going to be the result, I should tell you that you can find the Babies and Moms ladies over at http://www.babiesandmomsradio.com/.

So, Narmin and Nancy (one of the moms) were talking about Nancy's daughter and whether or not it is a good time to train her, since she is being kept in her crib for the same reasons I was keeping Elizabeth chained to hers. And being in a toddler bed is apparently the final sign of potty readiness, although it happens that I was not aware of that. Nancy was asking if she could just train her daughter for daytime potty-ing and work on the nighttime thing later. Well, Narmin said that she thought that this would be an inconsistent message to send and could perhaps be confusing to the kiddo that sometimes its ok to pee in their diaper and sometimes its not. I can't even describe the light bulb/neon sign/searchlight that went off in my head. It was like my brain screamed out "WELL, DUH!!!!!!!" It just made so much sense to me that this could be Elizabeth's problem. I was so excited that I barely made it through the rest of my work day. We had our labor day weekend trip up north coming up and what could be a better transition to a toddler bed then just never returning to a crib after 3 nights in a hotel bed?

That very evening we went to Toys R Us and Elizabeth picked out a toddler bed. She picked a Diego (if somehow you don't know about Diego, he's basically the Dora the Explorer for boys) bed which was not exactly what I had in mind, but she liked it and that's what matters. The transition to a toddler bed has been seamless. She stays in it all night sleeping like a...baby...and has totally taken it in her stride. Such a good little girl. And get this.

After months and months of random and rare cooperation this is how the last three days have gone: Wednesday: Grandpa (the Papa Nanny) started off the day with a no-pants day, when she asked for a diaper he said no and she peed in her potty. And got her second sticker on that chart I mentioned a month ago. Yesterday she got 5 stickers. That's 3 pees and a poop if you're wondering. She refused to go diaperless after her nap, but all that pottying is a triumph for us. This morning I got calls reporting two pees. Up to 9 stickers. And only 10 were required for Dora's backpack. The tenth sticker was gotten this afternoon not too long after daddy got home.

After our trip to the store to buy the promised "potty present", Dora's talking backpack (yes, Dora and Diego are popular at our house if you hadn't noticed. They drive me nuts, but then I'm not the intended audience), Elizabeth decided that for her next potty present she wanted Diego's backpack and I barely got the new potty chart drawn up before she had added a sticker to it. Things are getting exciting around here let me tell you. We are making more progress in these last three days than we ever have before. Thank you Babies and Moms Ladies and Narmin! You guys totally rock! Oh, and thank you Dad! Without you we wouldn't have got this far because you had to be the one to get it going.
You know, if someone had told me 10 years ago that I would happily repeat this story over and over to anyone who asked and a lot of people who haven't, I never would have believed it. Well, I would have believed that I would repeat a story multiple times, but happily talk about my baby's excretions? Nope, I wouldn't have believed it.