I'm going to go out on a limb here.....

And say we might just have a potty trained 2-year old in the house. This has been such a long time coming. Her old day care started working with her this time last year but we are just now really pushing it. We tried everything over the past year, from stickers, to M&M's, to cheering like fools, to books, you name it, all with minimal success. She knew to go in the potty, she was just too busy playing and didn't want to stop to go potty when she could just go in her pants. Its all about her being in control, which I fully recognize. What finally worked was just getting stubborn and going for it. We started talking about going to the potty and big girl underwear for a few weeks, so this week we decided it was time to stop talking and do it. I got her out of bed Monday morning and took her to the potty and said no more pull-ups during the day, big girl underwear only. She was thrilled to be able to put on her Yo Gabba Gabba underwear so I got excited that this was could start a new chapter for us. That first morning was the hardest, most challenging time I think I've ever had with her. She stayed dry for about 45 minutes and it was downhill from there. We went to the potty every 20 minutes with a  few successful attempts of making it in time. But the majority of the time, she refused to stop playing when she needed to pee and even after I put her on the potty, she'd still go in her pants. At one point, she even sat on the floor and peed and pooped right on the floor. I was so, so frustrated at that point. So, I made her help me clean up the mess on the floor and expressed my extreme disappointment in her behaviors. Luckily, I never yelled, but I was boiling inside. I finally decided I was going to need some help, so I downloaded the book Potty Training Boot Camp and read through it over lunch. It gave me a few good ideas and encouraged me to keep trying. I put her in a pull-up for nap and luckily took a nap myself to recharge my energy. After her nap, I put underwear back on her and we started back our routine of potty every 20-30 minutes. I also changed the M&M plan by only giving her one when I asked her to go and 2 when she told me she needed to go.  It was like something clicked in her head during nap because she had 0 accidents that afternoon. I was in shock. It was like night and day difference from the morning and I really couldn't figure out the major difference. I didn't even use 1 suggestion from the boot camp book but was so glad to have had a better afternoon. I was so exhausted at the end of the day knowing just the first battle was over. Luckily, Todd bought me chocolate after seeing an early morning Facebook status post from me and that helped ease my frustration a little that evening.

I woke up dreading Tuesday morning because I knew it would probably be tough. I stood corrected because Aubrey had 0 accidents. We even got poop in the potty, which was such a big deal for her. This is the same girl that would go hide while she pooped in her pants and then asked to be changed. Number 2 in the potty brought lots of M&Ms and upped my confidence that something was going right. Wednesday was our test day because I was working so Aubrey had to cooperate with my mom and the potty. She did great most of the day, but had 1 accident while my mom was using the bathroom and then 1 right before dinner. I used a few tips from the book camp book following the 2nd accident and she seemed to understand that accidents don't make anybody happy. She had 1 small accident on Thursday and that was the last one we've had. By Friday, I decided she was ready to brave the world with no pull-ups so we went do some shopping. She did so great but was a little apprehensive when I made her sit on the toilet at Target. She didn't like the toilet paper covering the seat, but I forgot to buy covers for the seat, so we made do with what she had. She made it through the outing with no accidents and I was so relieved.

We've had no accidents today which makes me feel pretty confident she's got the hang of this potty thing and any future accidents are just accidents. She even made it through nap with dry underwear today, which was an accident on my part because I forget to put her in a pull-up. I still ask her about every hour if she needs to go just in case, but most of the time I ask and she doesn't need to go. She does a great job of telling us when she needs to go so we're trying to ask less. The only struggle we have now is that every once in a while she says she needs to go and once she's there, nothing happens. We are working to knock that behavior out because we usually drop whatever we were doing to run with her to the potty and its getting a little old to have the false alarms. But, we never know when they are false vs. real so we'll keep working to reinforce the real and inx-nay the false.

So, I guess the moral of the story was Aubrey was ready, she just needed her parents to be ready to push her. We're going to leave the pull-ups on at night for now because she is still waking up soaked so I'm not quite sure she's ready for underwear at night. But, I can handle 1 pull-up a day for the time being. While I am a little sad that we've passed yet another milestone in Aubrey's life, I am so excited that we finally got this under our belts. I really didn't want 2 children in diapers and it looks like I may have my wish. I fully realize there will still be accidents and some possible regression after Mason is born, but that's ok. We've tackled the biggest obstacle and we can handle the stumbling blocks that occur later. Yay for all of us!