Potty Time!

So I started potty training with this photo in mind.  I mean, how cute is this kid?!  And Sarah loves to read, so I would have plenty of opportunities to take a shot like this, right?  Because getting to take cute pictures of my kid will help us get through potty training.  Right??  And I'll have lots of time to snap photos because I won't be busy cleaning up accidents and doing laundry.  RIGHT???

 

 

Wrong.  The best picture I could get was a similar shot of Sarah on the potty - with my cell phone (please note that the super cute potty book she COULD have been reading is sitting on the counter next to her)...

 

 

As usual, our real life is not a cute black and white photo. In all fairness, though, I think anything making potty training look "cute" is blatant misrepresentation of the actual event!

 

We did read lots of books on the potty, though.  We also had our own chant to help get us upstairs to the bathroom ("Hey, hey!  Ho, ho!  To the potty you must go!").  We sang songs, played games, and wore dress up clothes.  That lead to this gem of a picture:

 

 

I kept a tally sheet so that I could be reminded of all our successes as I cleaned up the latest failure.  It took us a few days, but we got there!  (I'm not saying she was potty trained in three days - it's been a month and she's still having accidents.  It just took us three days to tip the scale heavily to the side of victory!)

 

 

After another successful day on Sunday, we ventured out to have dinner.  Sarah did GREAT!  To celebrate, we stopped by Candy Time on our way home and let her pick whatever she wanted. We left with $15 worth of salt water taffy, and it was totally worth it to reinforce that potty training!

 

 

On Monday, she had another day with no accidents, so I took her to the mall to ride on the carousal.

 

She stayed dry the entire time we were at the mall AND went to the bathroom with me while we were there, so I reinforced that with a giant pink cupcake!

 

 

We still had the occasional accident (and continue to do so!), but we spent lots of time celebrating, too.  Sarah worked hard for Reece's Pieces, marshmallows or Dum-Dum suckers (before the dog ate the whole bag of them).  When she'd had a really good day, we called Grammie and Pa-Pa or Adam and Megan to celebrate.  Sometimes they even came with us to get frozen yogurt!  YUM!