The Entertaining Adventures of Brookelynne Starr: Potty Training Edition Part 1 :)

First off let me start by asking a question. Who else, besides me, CANNOT believe that my baby girl is old enough to even start this discussion, much less do it? I'm just saying, that at 19.5 months, my daughter should not be so insistent on doing this, but insistent she is, so we are going for it!

It all started a few months ago when Mitch bought Brookelynne a 'potty chair'. He said she was smart enough to get potty trained and that that was the first step. I didn't want to get a potty chair because I felt like I would have to train her twice, once on it and then again on a regular toilet, and since I didn't plan on training her until the end of the summer, I figured we could just train her on the regular toilet, but Mitch disagreed, so we bought one. We opened it up, and put it in the bathroom and would take her diaper off occasionally (mainly right before bathtime) and sit her on it. Then we would sit on the potty next to her (usually not even using it) and tell her "This is where we go potty". She peed in it a couple of times but never with out prompting.

Then I spent a morning (probably a month and  a half ago) in the bathroom with her sitting on the potty, hoping she would go, so she would figure out what we were wanting her to do. After 3.5 hours in there, toes and fingers painted, multiple songs sung and toys played with, she didn't 'potty'. I almost put it away then, since we weren't going to be doing it 'anytime soon', but she liked it, so I left it. Occasionally, she would say "potty" and go sit on it and I would take her diaper off so she could, but she never did anything. I don't consider any of that potty training, because quite frankly none of it was intentional or what not.

All that led to the day that she set her mind to potty training! Last Monday morning I was in Brax's room changing him when Brooke came into the room with her diaper half off saying "potty". So I took it off and out of the room she ran. She was still sitting on the potty (with no avail) when I left Brax's room a couple minutes later. I made Brax a bottle, put him down and started checking my email, completely forgetting that I had a half naked child running around the house. 15 minutes later she came up to me and said "potty, Paaaaaaaaa-T"  I got up, thinking she wanted me to come in there and sit in front of her while she sat on the potty. When we walked in there, she pointed and said "potty". Sure enough, I looked in there and she had peed and pooped in there already! So I praised her and took her to her room to put a diaper on her. I put her on the changing table and she started freaking out, saying "no diaper, no diaper, no diaper". So I told Mitchell, we needed to buy panties and start the potty training process. We had plans Tuesday and Wednesday, but Thursday morning, the madness began!