Potty Trained

April 13th was the day I declared you officially potty trained!!  That made you 31 months almost exactly 2 and 1/2.  Looking back it was pretty difficult.  You’ve had your little potty and have showed interest since you were two, but I’d try for a day or two and decide you weren’t ready after accident after accident.  Then you began resisting wearing a diaper and taking it off.  You also went successfully on the potty during bathtime one night, so I decided to get serious about it.  I did some reading and consulted with grandma and decided that I would just commit for two weeks and if you still didn’t have it by then I’d reevaluate.  For the first two days, I didn’t go anywhere and just let you have accident after accident and would explain what that was and try to get you to the potty.  When you’d go on the potty you got lots of praise and you got to call Grandma or Dad to tell them what you did.  We also took our potty baby to the potty a lot and explained what she was doing.  For the first week it was very touch and go.  You’d have a day with no accidents and then a day with 20 accidents.  I was constantly talking myself out of being frustrated.  It didn’t help that you go poop up to 5 times a day :/  I was really thinking I was going to have to abandon ship but towards the end of the two weeks you really caught on.  You were so proud of yourself every successful potty trip as was I.  You couldn’t look cuter in your big girl panties.  Keeping your Minnie’s dry is a big motivator for you.  Since then we’ve had some bumps but mostly you do really well.  When you’re with Addy I have to force you to the bathroom or you will inevitably have an accident because you are so busy playing.  We went through a phase about a month after you were trained where the novelty of the potty was gone and you would resist going to the bathroom.  During that phase you had so many accidents it was worse than the training phase.  I then stepped up my game and bought potty prizes you got intermittently.  That big the trick and now self-initiate going potty.  For about three months you still had accidents about every other day, but haven’t had one in awhile now.  I’m just happy that it’s over and we did it without shaming you or resorting to food!  Way to go babe!!!  These milestones are always bittersweet for me, but it’s so awesome to see you evolve and grow.