I love being a mom, but there is one thing I absolutely DO NOT look forward to and that is potty training. I realized with Kristen that potty training is something that I am not good at. My first attempt at potty training Kristen I failed. I had all of these high expectations and realized very quickly that I had no control in the potty training situation. Then I decided to take people's advise and wait until she was 3. She did seem to get it a little better at three, but I think it was more because she hated to be wet, so one accident was all it took for her to realize that in order to stay dry, she needed to go potty in the pink potty. I didn't even attempt to potty train Lauren until three. Sadly, I received a BIG F for my first attempt to potty train her too. I felt like a new dog owner because she would sit on the potty forever and as soon as she got up she would pee in the floor. It was very frustrating, so I gave up. It was just easier to do that and tell everyone she just wasn't ready. So, like I did when taking her pacifier away, I made every excuse I could think of to delay the potty training. It was just much easier to put a diaper on her than clean up the floors. Well, the time had come to start the potty training. I had told Paul I was going to start on Monday, but when I woke up on Sunday I was just so excited (not really) that I started a day early. I put her in her Dora underwear. She looked so cute. She would look down at them then look up with a BIG smile on her face and say "Big girl underwear." We had one accident by lunch time with no success of any pee in the potty. I gave myself a pep talk. I just knew I was going to be cleaning up pee for the entire day, and that was okay. I was not going to give up and (with much prayer) she would hopefully get it by the end of the week before I totally went insane. After lunch she clearly had to go to the bathroom. We sat and sat. She would get up, pull up her big girl underwear, make it to the door of the bathroom, cross her legs and come back and sit down. This went on for an hour and a half. We brought toys and books in for her. I told her to show Boots, her doll, how she went potty. So, she stood up, stuck him the the potty and sat back down on him. I got him out and explained what was to go in the potty and it wasn't toys. Kristen really wanted her to go to the bathroom because I kept talking about candy and told Kristen she would get a piece but Lauren had to go to the bathroom first. I explained that this was how we taught her. After that, she was on board and Lauren's biggest cheerleader. I decided that since I could see in to the bathroom from the living room, I would go and sit down and try to give her some privacy. So, I went to go help Paul with something when Kristen came running to us happily exclaiming that Lauren had FINALLY peed. Now, at this point I didn't know if it was in the floor or the potty, but once I got to the bathroom I was very happy it was in the potty. We all made such a big deal and were so excited that we made poor little Lauren cry. I was a little scared that she wouldn't do it again because of our reaction, but for the rest of the day she went to the bathroom on her own. Took her own little toys in there and did her business and didn't even tell us. So, today is another day. I found with Kristen that there are really good days of potty training and really bad days. I am not sure what today will be, but I pray we have another really good day.
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