{Scariest thing of my life}

Two words - Potty Training.

[With basic reasoning skills you can assume that there will be potty talk in this blog. If that makes you uncomfortable or you just done care, no offense taken, just stop reading and have a lovely day]

Yes, my friends, you read that correctly. After Miriam was born and we were changing her diapers, Sean and I realized that Evette was WAY to big to still be wearing diapers. Since Sean is on parental leave, we decided to go ahead and potty train Evette. 

It is terrifying to potty train your child....

We decided to put her in panties straight from the beginning and not leave the house til she got the hang of it.

We started Sunday afternoon and set an alarm on our phone for every 20 minutes so that she could go and sit on the potty. She would sit on the potty, but refused to go. After many hours of this we figured our only choice was to put her in a diaper for bed. After 2 minutes of wearing the diaper, she filled that sucker up. So she had the bladder control, we just needed to help her channel it. 

Monday was horrible. Messes all over the place and she didn't seem to care at all. It's scary to put a new pair of panties on a little girl when you are nearly positive it will result in a puddle [or worse] all over your floor......We put her in diapers for nap time and bed time and she filled both those up the second we put them on her.

Tuesday morning she, again, refused to go on the potty. Sean finally sat down with her and had a heart to heart with her. He told her that we couldn't leave the house to go to the park or anything until she went potty. She said, "OK!" and ran to her little potty and went right then. Seriously? Seriously. No more accidents that day.  According to our plan, since she made progress we decided to not put a diaper on her for nighttime - It's terrifying to not put a diaper on your little girl when she'll be asleep for 11-12 hours and you have no idea if she'll wake up or not....But she even woke herself up during her naps and nighttime to get out of bed and go on her little potty. Evette and I went to the store later that day to buy some more panties and candies as a reward for every time she went.

The next day Evette had such great bladder control that she peed every 10 minutes or so until we ran out of Hershey kisses [after I caught on to her scheming I only took most of the candies out of the bowl..]. She did so great that day and we no longer do the rewards because we obviously ran out of candy lol. 

Since that time we've only had a handful of accidents, nearly all of them at nighttime. She usually goes in her little potty because she can do that all by herself, but sometimes if we're closer to the bathroom I'll help her with the big potty. After she goes in her little potty she carries the bowl it to the bathroom, dumps it, and rinses it out in the sink....This is only slightly terrifying. Have you ever seen a toddler with their pants around their knees and hair in their eyes quickly scramble down the hall with a bowl sloshing full of urine? It's scary, my friends. Miraculously, we've never had any problems with this.... fingers are staying crossed.

It's also frightening to go to the store where the toilet isn't 10 feet away like it is at your house.....BUT when I took Evette to the grocery store she let me know that she needed to go and we briskly ran to the bathroom and she held it the whole time!

It's scary driving 4 hours down to Houston and not putting a diaper on your little one when you know there's no easy way to clean a carseat on the road...... We stopped halfway there and had a little potty break - and she was a champ!

It's nerve-wracking sending Evette to joy school at our friends' houses and not knowing if she'll remember to tell the mom that she needs to go to the bathroom.....and if she does have an accident you know your friend will have to clean it up off of their floor....Well, she did have an accident once, but overall she's done great! And our friends have been super supportive and helpful and are still our friends [I think :) ].

So..... it's pretty scary - dare I say, the scariest thing of my life - to potty train my toddler. But she's been absolutely wonderful! I would say after about 3 days she became "potty trained".... I'm so proud of her. And... who knew that one could get so excited over bowel movements? Seriously the first few days were like fireworks every time Evette went potty lol. 

But we did it! I'm sure I'll still be a little bit scared for the next few weeks....But I'm more proud of Evette and happy than scared.