Adventures in Potty Training

Maybe I’m not the best person to write this…  Although I do consider myself quite a potty training pro.  I mean, I’ve been doing it for 5 months, so I should be.

So if nothing else, maybe you can glean some knowledge from my mistakes experience.

Let me start with a little background…

We used cloth diapers from age 6 months until we began potty training at 26 months.  That was when she started soaking through a diaper in under 5 minutes.  One of my friends pointed out that she must be holding it to pee that much.

That was all I needed to hear. 

She was holding it?  Hallelujah!  Let the potty training begin!

My original idea was to go with the boot camp method.  You know, pump her full of fluids and make her sit on the potty every 10 minutes, then voila!  She’s potty trained in three days. 

In my head it sounded so easy.  But that just didn’t work for us.  Or should I say me.  She went through nine pairs of pants in the first hour and a half.  And I got tired of cleaning the carpet.

The better course of action was to restrict her liquids to meal/snack time or if requested and take her potty every 30.   Plus the pants had to go.  She couldn’t distinguish between undies and diapers, but when she was naked, she got it.

Then there was the rewards.  We started with a sticker chart.  Every time she sat on the potty she got one star.  If she peed, she got one M&M.  If she pooped, she got two. 

We kept this up for the first week.  We stayed close to home to ensure we could get to a potty quickly.  We spent hours sitting on the potty reading books and singing songs.

And slowly she started to get it.

She understood where the pee pee and poo poo came from thanks to Prudence from Once Upon a Potty.  She knew what it felt like to have to go.  And she knew she didn’t want to stop what she was doing to take care of business.  Regardless of how many M&Ms it got her.  And don’t even get me started on “the deuce.”

Over the past five months, we’ve gone through periods of great success and horrible failure.  But we’ve stuck with it.  And I’d say we are about 80% there.

So even though every time we ask if she needs to get potty, we get an answer of “no yet!” we keep plugging along.  Because there is a dream that one of these days, our house will be diaper free and I won’t have to wipe someone’s ass forever.

Flashback Friday {Vacation}

I didn’t get much sleep last night.  I just couldn’t shut off my brain.  And then the neighbor’s dog MacGyver’ed himself outside and couldn’t get back in the house.  So he barked.  At 4am.  For over an hour. 

So today, all I can think about is wanting to be here.

With her.

And him.

No plumbing backups.  No broken dryer.  No mountain of yard sale leftovers.

Just me and my loves.

Best. Yard. Sale. Ever.

Oh, yes.  I actually followed through on this yard sale bidness.  Even after the weather report threatened rain all day.  And it was AWESOME!

Not so much because we made a lot of money (we made a little).  Or because we got rid of a lot of stuff (we still have a lot left).  But because we had a blast doing it!

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen this posted at around midnight Friday night.

Because everyone knows that it’s much more important to stay up baking cinnamon rolls than, say, pricing yard sale items or going to bed since you have to be up at the ass crack of dawn.

My original idea was to sell them to hungry yard salers, but honestly they were so good, I didn’t want to share.  Although I did share with the neighbors.  Because I’m generous like that. 

And because they provided this.  Let me introduce you to our spokesperson.

I mean, who wouldn’t go to a yard sale endorsed by The Hulk?

He drove in so much traffic, we stayed open late.  We grilled brats for lunch and hung out while last-minute shoppers rummaged through our stuff.  We finally closed up shop when the rain hit at 2p. 

But all in all, it was a very successful sale and I’m kinda looking forward to having another one in the Spring!