Friday morning, in a last minute decision, Zoe and I headed out to my parents house to hang out with them for a bit. We initially were going to go to Target and Zoe was going to help me pick out her potty supplies… you know, to start the potty!trainin!is!exciting!!!! hype. Instead, I kinda just dropped her off at my parents and enjoyed strolling around Target by myself. I walked away with a Sesame Street toilet seat, princess underwear {why don’t stores have Sesame Street underwear?!?!?!}, M&M’s, a step stool {which we later returned because we found our old one} and some fruit snacks. My plan was to start the introduction to potty training AFTER naptime, which is about an hour before Brad would be home for the weekend, and then really start potty training on Saturday. Instead, what happened is Zoe saw her Sesame Street potty seat and went a little nuts… so we started playing around with potty training right when we got home BEFORE naptime.
Because we just kinda dove into the Target bag and started, I totally forgot to do a “Fare thee well” party for the leftover diapers, there was no big introduction to big girl panties except opening the package together on the kitchen floor and oohing and aahing over fun panties… just like Mommy’s. We just kinda went for it, with gusto.
First stop on the potty, we read and sang songs, got up and down off the potty and after about 5 minutes, Zoe was standing next to the potty when I saw the “poop face” and heard a gassy sound. I picked her up mid-poo and plopped her on the pot. The second half got in the toilet. We celebrated like she was sitting on the toilet the whole time. Excitement!Treats!Tonsofpraise!PottyDance! We went nuts… it was over the top, and it was wonderful. Then I put her down for a nap… except, she tried to bargain to sit on the potty again instead of taking a nap. We had to put big girl panties on top of her diaper so that she didn’t feel ripped off, but honestly, she was so geeked out by her success that she didn’t sleep for a second of the hour that she was in her crib.
After nap, we did a few more trips to the potty just to get our routine set, Brad came home and Zoe asked to go to the potty. We put her on there and what do you know, pee-pee! I’m not gonna lie, we were both insanely proud of her. We did a few more small, uneventful trips to the potty and then headed out for dinner… with a diaper and big girl panties on.
Saturday morning, Brad and I woke up together and started the real deal right off the bat. Nothing the first round, no big deal. We then went on a scavenger hunt around the house for every diaper we could find, piled them up, and then Zoe threw them away saying “Bye Bye diapers. I love you”. {Brad went in after we left the room to retrieve the extra diapers for those “just in case” moments}. We oohed and aahed over big girl panties and then we headed back into the living room for our morning Sesame Street routine and a minute later she told me she had to potty. Off we went, running to the toilet… and again, right when she got on, pee-pee! It’s supposed to be harder than this? Right??? After the 4th trip to the potty, 3 of which she informed us she had to potty with 100% accuracy {pee w/in 30 seconds of sitting on the potty} and 1 just routine Mommy suggested trip where nothing happened… Brad and I looked at each other and said, “Oh boy…this is way too good to be true. We’re going to be scrubbing shit out of the carpet later, aren’t we?”
Turns out, we still haven’t had to. Since the first accidental success w/poop we haven’t had any other successes. BUT, and this is a big BUT, she’s told us when she had to go poop. Specifically. She just got bored both times waiting on the toilet and pooped right after she got off. The first time in the shower, yay for tile and an EASY clean up, and the second time in her Pull-Up at church. Which, for the record, I’m completely against using Pull-Ups while potty training… but, being that we were taking the risk of leaving the house on the 2nd day of potty training AND knowing that church falls RIGHT in the middle of the “poop zone”… we decided to not put the nursery ladies under that kind of pressure. I was ridiculously proud of her still though, because she was in the middle of a crowded room playing and still stopped to tell the nursery lady that she had to poop.
Sunday, after church – in big girl panties – we went to the Town Center and grabbed lunch, and then ran some errands in Target. I definitely found myself sitting on the floor in front of the toilet, balancing my toddler while singing “Old McDonald” {the #1 requested potty song} and then singing our pee-pee song and dancing around. I’m just gonna go ahead and say that I never really saw that one coming… but it didn’t even phase me, or Zoe for that matter. And, we had a successful trip!
I honestly can’t get over how easy this was. If felt like Zoe was potty training us. We’re over 48 hours into this and we’ve only had 1 true accident {meaning no mention of needing to go potty, just straight up unloading on the couch}. The poops I still count as partial successes because she acknowledged the need to poop, but just got bored. We had 2 successful naptimes, a successful trip to a birthday party on Day 1, successful errand running, and a successful 4th of July party at Kristin’s church. We didn’t have to do the “Every 15/30 trips to the bathroom”, we didn’t have to camp out in there at all. Zoe really just told us from the get go, and occasionally, if I felt like it’d been awhile, I’d suggest a bathroom trip.
This might have been the easiest aspect of parenting I’ve encountered so far… and I’m not taking it for granted!
Happy Monday Ya’ll!
