Potty Training... The Start

I decided to potty train Emma this week. She is pretty young, but the if I was going to do it before the baby comes, I had to do it this week. The awesome part is that late last week, Aaron's work told him he had to go out of town for training for the entire week. Aaron never has to go out of town for an entire week - we are spoiled like that. I decided that if Emma could wear big girl panties, so could I and do it while Aaron was out of town.

I decided to do this method where you stay in the house for 3 days and don't leave or do anything but focus on your kid and take them to the bathroom while they pee on your floor. Eventually they are supposed to get it and learn to tell you when they need to go potty. Emma did great the first day and I thought that we were in the clear. The next two days were just accidents for the most part. After not leaving the house for 3 days, and totally solo, I was getting a bit crazy. In fact, I can neither confirm nor deny that I had reached a cracking point.

The problem is, I am used to being in control. But I had to come to the conclusion that I don't have control over Emma, her bladder, or her understanding of the potty training concept. As near as I can tell, Heavenly Father blesses those who are about to crack because we had a break though the next day and I can't account for it. All I know is that she wanted to go potty, if I went. Since I am pregnant, that happens a lot. So that kept her from having accidents. She did however tell me if she had to go other than those times.

We have been accident free for 3 days now. The most shocking was today. We went to reunion of friends from our singles ward days. We show up to the park, and there is no bathroom. I had brought pull-ups just in case. So I put one on her. That was at 3pm. At 8:30pm we got home and she had never asked to use the potty. I figured that she was just so excited to have a diaper on and figured out that she could just pee at her  hearts content. When we got her home, we sat her on the toilet, and she went. I know, probably some more details, than desired. However, I checked her pull-up and the little kid held it all afternoon! She has a superior bladder to a pregnant person.

So, in the end, I got to play a lot with Emma this week. We played with play dough, which she loves. We built stairs out of Lego's and the Lego's-animals would go up the stairs and jump off and crash on the carpet. We also danced a lot, we made pretend soup with her kitchen, we wrestled, built forts, read books, colored and skyped with Grandpa Rich. Emma did surprisingly well for being couped up in the house for 5 days. She did ask to go on a walk, to the store, to church and to home depot. And, I went from stickers as a reward to fruit snacks. She loves fruit snacks.... just wait until she figures out candy. I have seen her language development grow this week. She has taken an interest in letters and can recognize the letters S,W,D, E, X. She can also recognize the numbers 2, 7, and 0. So, there have been some positive things. And, I didn't really have a carpet accident - just blankets and tile. There have been a lot of tender mercies this week. Aaron coming home was high on that list.