I don't mess around when it comes to potty training. When I potty trained Grace 2 short years ago, I started on a Monday and by Thursday she was accident free.
As it turns out, Grace is a much more compliant child than Bonnie.
We woke up this morning and I told Bonnie that right after breakfast we'd be removing her diaper and doing all tinkles and poo-poos on the potty. She said, "Ok, Momma."
So that is just what we did. As soon as she was finished with her biscuit and strawberries, I reminded her that we'd be using the potty from now on, and then I took her out of her highchair and removed the diaper.
She promptly walked into the living room and peed on the floor. And then did it again 10 minutes later.
Now I'm not as stressed out about potty training Bonnie as I was with Grace (I was 6 weeks away from giving birth and I did not want to have 2 kids in diapers), but it would be great to be on our way to big girl undies by the time preschool starts.
Without losing my cool, I reminded Bonnie that we do not tinkle on the floor and asked her if she would like to sit on the potty and give it another try.
She flatly refused.
It looks like I'm going to have my work cut out for me. On the bright side, Grace loves to "help." And by "help" I mean that she likes to demonstrate the proper way to use the restroom. This is great and all until I see by the expression on Bonnie's face that we have a bathroom emergency on our hands and when we rush to the potty the toilet is occupied. :)
Luckily, Mimi was eager to get out of the house today (can't imagine why?!) so the two of them spent some quality time at Chuck E. Cheese's this afternoon.
Bonnie and I continued our boot camp after Mimi and Grace left, but at one point I started to second guess her readiness because she became so upset about the whole thing. She even went for 2 1/2 hours without an accident (and she'd had a ton of juice) and then woke up from her nap with a dry pull-up.
Of course, I raced her to the bathroom as fast as I could as it had then been 5 hours since her last tinkle. Wouldn't you know she went in the potty! I was so proud of her and she was so proud of herself that she put up her hand for a high five, and we forged ahead with our training.
Her reward is a miniature version of her favorite cookie - Keebler Fudge Stripes. Yummy.
We spent the rest of the afternoon following a bare-bottomed Bonnie around like a little puppy. She had 2 more little tinkle accidents and one poo-poo accident (I very briefly put her in big girl undies to see how she'd like them and she almost immediately pooped in them), but after those incidents she tinkled in the potty 2 more times. I am hoping that she isn't learning to hold it until she has a pull-up or underwear on and then letting loose in there, but we'll see.
We're going to keep working at it and see how the rest of the week goes. Wish us luck!
