Potty Training: Success!

We had been preparing for a while to potty train Emma, started buying cute little undies, bought the little potty-chair, and talked of how awesome going on the potty-chair would be. Yet, every time I would try it out, things just would not go well. She would seem interested and want to wear her pretty panties, for about 3 hours or so. Then, no interest at all, no amount of bribing or reminding her that she would get a new "big girl" bed would convince her.. I felt like a was failing at this most basic task. Friends with kids younger were posting about their childs accomplishments in the potty-training arena, and I could not help but wonder why my child was not interested. Then, it happened. I finally conviced her that is was time to start and gave her plenty of notice before we dove into it. And she was not only on board with the idea, she exceeded my wildest hopes of training in 3-5 days. Initially, I had planned on her being in her undies while awake, pull-ups for naps and bedtime only, or for trips away from the house that might take more than 15 minutes. But, as she took right to potty training, with only one minor accident that very first day, I left her in undies all day, even during naps and excursion away from home. She did great!!! Trip to the bakery, no accidents. Trip to the grocery store, no accidents. Trip to Cescent City and back, no accidents. I was so amazed. Yes, she switched back and forth between pull-ups and undies at bedtime, with the occasional wet pull-up or soaked bedding, but it happened less and less in just a few short weeks. The past week, only one, very minor, as in drops really, bedtime accident, and she stays in undies. She has been waking up at 3a or so to go potty, then rigt back to sleep. Now, I know that there will most likely be the occasional accident, after all, those can happen for a while to even those that have been potty-trained for months. But I am not worried up those. Right now, I am just so amazed and impressed with my little girl! I never once thought that getting her switched from diapers to undies would take so little effort, or that I would feel such a mixture of emotions about it. I changed my last pull-up for her on May 10h. And the pull-up was dry. I am happy and oddly sad all at once. Okay, maybe it is not so much sad as it is bittersweet. Each stride she makes, each new thing she learns to do on her own, is so important, and so very much reminds me that, all too soon, she will not "need" me hardly at all. Which will make me happy, and miss being needed, and proud, and wish she still was a little girl so I could snuggle her without protest again. I never really thought of the emotional aspect of potty-training before, and only fully realized it when, in the beginning, Emma would ask to be in a pull-up at night. Not because she truly needed it most nights, but because she was not fully ready emotionally to give up them up entirely. A fact made pignantly clear when I told her that I was going to give them to a baby that needed them and she started crying and said; "but I'm not a big girl yet. I still need them." My heart broke. Yes, she did not truly, physically need them much, if at all, but she was still not emotionally ready to let go of the "baby" side of life and become the "big girl" she now was. I put her in pull-ups that night, and any night after that she asked. Now, if I try to put them on her for bedtime, just in case, so that the babysitter would not need to change out sheets the next day (she only got/gets pull-ups on the night before Josh and I are both gone to work before she wakes)she cries and asks to stay in her undies. She is a "big girl" now and she loves it! Now, we are looking at new beds and I am going to start gathering materials to make her the canopy she wants. I may even talk to her daddy about changing up the wall colors and stickers for her. She wants pink walls with grey stripes. We may be able to do that. :) I am so blessed by this little girl that takes each day head on, and when she is ready for the next step in growing up, she dives for it, tackling it with relative ease. I can learn a lot from her and how she handles so many things. I may be one of her teachers, but she teaches me as much, if not more, than I could ever teach her!