A Successful Day of Pottying

I've been trying the whole potty-training thing with Anna again, although pretty casually. YOu may remember that I had tried it in early August, but it was a total no-go. She had very little interest in sitting on the potty, and she never produced anything. She was having other disobedience issues, so I figured why fight a potty-training battle in addition to everything else? I'm not crazy, LOL.

I must say I am glad we waited. Last week she was all of a sudden pretty dry after naps and upon waking in the morning, so I started putting her on the potty then. She would go, everyone would be so happy, M&Ms were passed all around--good times for us all. But I didn't really push the whole thing during the day.

Today she went in the morning and I put her in underwear. She only had one time where she started to go, felt it on her leg, and told Luke, who helped her get to the potty. I was the most thrilled when she came to me this afternoon and told me she had to poo-poo, then proceded to go on the potty. Yay!

Tonight was soccer practice, which lasts from 5:30 -7:30 for us. She peed right before we left, and she was not keen on the idea of going back to a diaper, so I left her in underwear, but packed a change of clothes. She had never been on a regular big potty, so I wasn't sure that she would go in one there. About halfway through the time, she came back from the playground to tell me she needed to go, so we headed off to the bathroom. She sat on the potty and went after just a few minutes, which made me very happy!

So if this indeed "takes", and we don't have some unforeseen problem in the next few days, I will have to say that I am a believer that girls are easier to potty-train than boys. For one thing, my boys have never been ready before right around their third birthday (and I have tried earlier, believe me, but I just ended up cleaning up a TON of accidents). For another thing, it seems that my boys anyways just can't keep track of their body signals when they are doing something (anything!) else. So they would NEVER have been able to stop peeing, tell a sibling, and get to a potty. By the time they realized they needed to pee, it was COMING! In a flood! No more time! Too late! Anna obviously realized things were happening before it was too late, which is a very positive sign, I think!

Since I pass out M&Ms (Skittles for Caleb) around to everyone when Anna successfully potties, she has a dedicated cadre of cheerleaders. Even Grace gets so excited and starts babbling away when she sees Anna sitting on the potty! As Anna gets more used to going, I've been phasing out the M&Ms. I'm not giving them when she wakes up or before bed anymore, mainly just during the parts of the day when she comes and tells me she needs to go. Still, we've eaten a lot of M&Ms in this house, lately. Good thing I had bought a giant bag of them from Sams last time we were there!