Live-Blogging Potty Training... Again

I didn't expect to be writing this post today, but R insisted. Hey, lady, I'm all for having you be diaper independent. If you say you're ready, then let's get this boat moving!

Morning
She fussed through her diaper change this morning, same as she's been fussing through diaper changes for awhile now. The routine after any meal is that R will go to the bathroom to wash her hands, I'll sit her on the potty for a bit, and in the morning, the next step is that we'll take a shower together. She did not want to wash her hands (I made her), and she certainly didn't want to sit on the potty. I told her if she didn't sit on the potty then she wouldn't be taking a shower with me. She LOVES shower time, so that's quite a punishment. Nevertheless, her anger overwhelmed her desire for shower. I sat her on the travel potty in front of Sesame Street while I took a shower without worry of being knocked over by a toddler trying to squeeze herself between my legs.

When Sesame Street was over, I tried to put a diaper on R, and she once again, big surprise, threw a fit. The lightbulb went off in my head, "You want to potty train today, don't you?" It's not like we have anywhere to go today, so it works out. She wandered around in her training pants for an hour with no accidents. Now I'm about to get ready to make lunch, so she's sitting on the travel potty and watching Peter Pan. I'd like to put her back in a diaper while she eats lunch (based on previous experiences), but I don't foresee her enjoying that either.

Lunch
She peed a bit on the travel potty during Peter Pan. She had drank juice while she was watching the movie. Now she is in her high chair to eat lunch, still wearing training pants. I put a plastic bag and a prefold diaper underneath her. We'll see if she'll want to sit on the big potty after she's finished eating.

Well, she really surprised me: she was still dry after eating lunch! I could not get her to wash her hands or sit on the big potty, though. She wanted nothing more than to climb all over the couch with her food-smeared hands and face. That didn't go over so well with Mommy. I sat her in the dry tub and attacked her with a wet washcloth. She played with the bath toys for a bit, still not wetting herself, and still not wanting to sit on the big potty. She accepted a diaper without fighting and then happily went upstairs to take a nap.

To recap this morning, after I took her nighttime diaper off, she has peed only once and it was in the travel potty. She seems absolutely certain to know when she does NOT need to pee, but I haven't really been assured that she knows when she DOES have to pee. Still, it seems like I could place more trust in her judgement. I'm not expecting a bowel movement until just before dinner, as it's been the last couple of days. So far, so good!

Afternoon
She had a long nap (always helpful), and woke up with a wet diaper. She did not want to use the big potty when I brought her downstairs. Right now she is wearing training pants and playing with her toys. Let's hope the rest of today stays dry!

She had drank juice at 4:20. I was going to enforce a mandatory potty break at 4:40, but she beat me to it: at 4:30 she started tugging at her underwear. I sat her on the big potty, and it took awhile, but she did eventually pee a little bit. I waited to see if she would poop, too, but it wasn't happening, so I took her off around 4:45. At 4:50, she picked up her juice cup and started to pee on the floor as she drank. Her first accident of the day. I put her back on the big potty. She peed twice more while sitting on the big potty. She got really involved in a new show I found on Netflix called Baby Class, so now she's sitting on the travel potty to finish up the show while I type this up. Thai food for dinner has been ordered and Senpai is on his way home from work. I'm going to lie down.

Evening
She peed on the floor again as she tried to play with some toys. I put her in a diaper after that. She then stepped in the pee while I was trying to clean it up. I was thrilled. Thankfully that's when Senpai came home, not a moment too soon.


After the way this evening went, I'm tempted to keep potty training only to the mornings for now. Some hiccups are that I have a doctor appointment in St. Louis tomorrow morning, and R has a pediatrician appointment Thursday morning. Fun, fun. We'll figure this out somehow.

Live-Blogging Potty Training, Day 2

I didn't think I would blog again today, but Senpai mentioned how he liked visiting the page and being kept abreast of our day while he was work. Here we are again, keeping Daddy and the blogosphere informed of our progress.

8 am - Today has not started so well as yesterday. R woke up at 6. I refuse to get out of bed until 7. She sat on the big potty when we finally came downstairs to start the day, but nothing happened because she had already gone in her diaper, understandably. I put her in a new diaper while she ate breakfast, and now I can't get it off of her. She didn't want her post-meal potty time, and she won't hold still to let me put panties on her. She's started playing with blocks... I think now is my opportunity to do the switch.

9 am - She just peed a little bit in the travel potty. I had given her some juice, so I'm still waiting for the rest of the pee.

10:15 am - More pee (and a goldfish!) in the travel potty while she watches "Peep's Big Wide World." No accidents yet today. I'm turning off the tv.

10:20 am - She just wet herself next to the slide. There's nothing like the slide to get this girl peeing. I'm tempted to put a puppy mat in front of it. :-p Based on yesterday and today's happenings, tomorrow I will start to implement a mandatory 10 am big potty break. While the travel potty is nice, she doesn't fully relieve herself on it.

11:06 am - I had sat her on the big potty from 10:40 to 11:05 in the hopes of getting her to poop, but no such luck.

1 PM - She's down for her nap now. I had put her on the potty for 5 minutes just before lunch to see if she would get everything out of her system before wetting herself in the high chair, but she didn't go, so guess what happened on the high chair. Sitting on the potty after lunch she didn't do anything either. We're still waiting for poop today. Two accidents in this first round.

I'm well aware that right now this whole potty training adventure seems to be more about training me than her. I'm holding on to the moment yesterday when she stopped watching Winnie the Pooh (!!!) to let me know to take her to the big potty. And then she peed. It was beautiful. I need more moments like that. Tell me you have to go, Sweetie, hold it until you get on a potty. That's all I'm asking. These are the things that will come with time. For now I have to keep an eagle eye on her, and I will admit, it's getting boring. I'm really curious to see where we'll be by the end of the week.

3 pm - I need lots of calm and strength right now. She woke up early from her nap. I took her to the potty, nothing happened, and she was in a sour mood. I took her back upstairs to finish her nap. She isn't looking like she's going to fall back to sleep and that has both of us feeling crabby. I'm not sure how to continue from here.

9 pm - Are you wondering, "What happened to the rest of the day?" Haha, it was rough. I needed to get out of the house before I had a Mommy Meltdown (in capital letters, because it was baaaad), so I threw a diaper on R and we went to Target. I strapped her into her stroller, got myself a Frappuccino, and met up with Senpai who stopped by on his way home from work. Sigh, much better. We went home, abandoned potty training for the rest of the day, cooked our usual Tuesday dinner of frozen pizza, then I went off to bellydance class. When I came home, R was in bed as she should've been, catching up on some much needed sleep.


It was the short nap that killed the afternoon. Usually she sleeps for 2-3, sometimes even 4 hours during her afternoon nap. For her to wake up after only 1 hour today, after going to bed late last night and waking up early this morning... it was just bad. Her mood was horrible, and in my trying to "fix" her mood by forcing her to go back to sleep, but she wasn't having it, which pissed me off... oh, it was bad. When I find myself taking away her beloved Pooh doll and saying, "You don't deserve Pooh!" I know something has gone horribly wrong. Potty training had to be abandoned because neither of us could handle it as frazzled as we were.

Do I try again tomorrow? Senpai says no. I think I need to relax the standards a bit... use more diapers throughout the day, and just toss on training pants at certain times, as opposed to trying to keep her in training pants for all of her waking hours. The reason I started this potty training adventure was because R had been fighting both the potty and diapers. I wanted to switch things up for her to try something new. Come to think of it, this afternoon she was fighting both the potty and diapers again, but that could be from the tiredness.

She just woke up screaming... I wonder if she's teething? Ahh, babies. We'll never figure them out.

Live-blogging Potty Training

Yes, I am live-blogging potty training. Why? Because R and I are stuck at home, and I am nowhere near as interested in R's toys as she is. Right now she is sitting on her "My Carry Potty" while drinking juice and watching Sesame Street. Thank you, Elmo.

Today is the day when I'm ready to crack down on removing the safety and security that comes with diapers. She knows full well how to use the potty-- she's been doing it since he was 12 months old-- but she still pees in her diapers, because they're there. It's time for me to stop relying on the diapers, as well. I bought three packs of Gerber Training Pants, and I am ready to take her all the way to diaper independence. (Psyching myself up, lol!)

She has worn the training pants for limited occasions on two previous days. Those days involved accidents, but this morning has gone well so far. R woke up well rested. I brewed a large pot of coffee. We're all good. ^_^ The first thing we do in the morning is sit R on the big potty. Usually she won't pee then because she'd already gone in her nighttime diaper, but not today! So we started off strong with a morning pee. I put her in a diaper for her to eat breakfast, but the diaper was dry, so I think I'll stick with training pants during lunch. She peed on her carry potty around 9:30 while watching Sesame Street. Now I'm waiting for the juice to work its magic. As of 10 am we are accident-free.

10:11 am - More pee in the travel potty. She's eating her goldfish and watching "Peep's Big Wide World." I feel bad for her little butt to be sitting on that hard seat for such an extended period of time, but she's interested in watching the tv shows, and I don't feel comfortable with her sitting diaper-less on the couch or carpet yet. When she's playing with her toys on the wood floor I just keep her in the training pants with the potty nearby.

10:30 am - She stood up from her potty, and stood next to her slide still transfixed on the tv. She peed on the floor. Note to self: turn off tv if she isn't sitting on the potty.

10:40 am - Massive deluge on the slide. I should've taken the little dribble before as a sign to take her to the big potty, especially after she drank all of that juice. I tried putting her on the travel potty right then but she wouldn't go for it. She's sitting on the big potty now. I'm not expecting there to be any more pee left. We're going to hop in the shower now.

11:14 am - Here is where I start getting frustrated. We got out of the shower, I had just put new panties on her and sat her down in front of some toys so I could get dressed... and she had another big pee. I mean, where did it even come from? Patience, Mommy, patience. She is on the big potty again and she will stay there until pee or poop goes into it.

11:45 am - We read books and she peed on the big potty at 11:35. I asked her if she wanted to flush and get down, but instead she wanted to read another book. Ten minutes later she pooped on the big potty. Now she's playing, and I've got to get lunch ready before she wets another training panty. We're down three from the morning, six more to go.

12:35 pm - Her panties were dry when I put her on the high chair for lunch. After she finished eating they were wet. It would have a been a pleasant surprise if they had stayed dry, but I wasn't expecting it. I set her on the big potty again for the post-meal standard potty break and nothing came out, no surprise there. She is down for her nap now wearing a diaper. The shirt I had put on her this morning stayed clean through all of the accidents, but I had to change her into a new shirt anyway because I forgot to give her a bib with lunch. Oh well. Time for me to clean, bake a pumpkin pie, and try to relax. I need to regain my calm and composure for round two when she wakes up.

3:20 pm - Round 2! She woke up at 3:00 with a wet diaper. She sat on the big potty but didn't have any deposits. Now she's sitting on the travel potty watching her favorite movie ever, Winnie the Pooh. At the moment I feel like sitting on the potty while watching tv is good for her, because it reinforces the rule that pee only goes in the potty, not diapers (or training pants). Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to move away from so much tv time.

4:30 pm - R took a break from sitting on the travel potty watching Pooh so that she could get on the big potty to pee. I had given her juice at 4, so it was time for it. Now the question... she wants to finish the movie, but she just peed... do I put her back on the travel potty? Or let her watch the movie without any sort of plastic protection? I know what the answer is, but I don't like it. No one said potty training would be fun.

4:50 pm - Since the issue of "plastic protection" was what was bothering me, I sat her on a plastic bag on the couch. I'm sure she appreciates the soft cushion under her butt! Still dry.

6:30 pm - She's in a diaper now. She had peed a little on the potty before dinner, but then after dinner we pulled her off her high chair sopping wet. I put her on the potty again and she wanted down before she had done anything, and she also wouldn't let me put a new panty on her. So diaper it is.


There's only an hour left to her day before we put her down for the night, and she's in a diaper, so that's the end of today's potty training. R is doing really great. She was very cooperative for the most part. The morning was a little rough, but, aside from wetting herself during dinner, there weren't any afternoon accidents, mostly because she signaled to me when she had to go. I see that as great progress!

I don't know if I'll live-blog tomorrow. Now that we've started potty training it will be an ongoing endeavor. My hope is to solely focus on it this week, with few, if any, trips ventured out of the house. We'll see how we hold up.