Potty Training, Take Two

We had the holiday weekend at home, so with four days to figure this out, I decided to give Emily another shot at potty training. I'd say we had mixed to not-so-great results... but not altogether terrible. Last night, she used the potty three times (at my suggestion) at a friend's house, and she seemed to know exactly what she was doing and be so pleased with herself. I had high hopes for today, since we had the whole day at home to figure it out and earlier in the day she had gone twice without me suggesting it. Today went well until she pooped in her underwear, and then the game was pretty much off for the day. We sat and read books on the potty for probably 45 minutes before she finally peed on the carpet... and I gave up for the day. She wore diapers until she finally pooped again in the evening, and then wanted to wear her "Melmo"s, which I was glad to hear that she wasn't totally opposed two wearing undies after all this. I'm glad I bought 3 different kinds of undies, because she really took a liking to the Elmo ones. I'm not sure how to handle tomorrow when she's at daycare. I think we made enough progress over the last 4 days that I don't want to just give in and go back to diapers completely. I'm afraid if I do that, I'll miss a window of opportunity where she's able to try something new and not be too stubborn to leave behind diapers. We'll see what Amanda thinks tomorrow, I guess, but I think I'll keep trying the next three mornings next week.

The funniest part of potty training is that I discovered that Emily has nearly no poop face at all. She was standing 3 feet from me as I talked to her, wearing only a shirt, and suddenly there was poop on the floor behind her, as though it had fallen from the sky. She seemed a little surprised to see it there, and I tried to explain to her that with a little warning it could fall right into the potty. It was certainly a weird experience for her, but really, really funny to me, somehow. It was such a surprise!! What the heck, where did that come from?? It's too bad, though, because the lesson didn't really stick for her.

All in all, it was a really fun weekend, even with the exhaustion of sitting on/near the potty for hours and hours. Travis got a couple of bike rides in, and we saw some friends. I did all of the laundry and grocery shopping, so it was productive too. And there was only one bottle rocket in our yard this morning, so for all the explosions going on last night in our neighborhood, not too bad.