Adventures in Potty Training

One of my goals for this summer was to potty train Bridget, and I wanted to start as soon as possible so that she'd hopefully be a pro by the time I go back to work at the end of August. The day after the UPS lady delivered her stuff we were good to go (or so I thought). We already purchased her princess underwear a few weeks before and had been talking about this event for weeks to get her excited about it.
I just wished someone would have warned me about how frustrating and disgusting potty training really is. I was very optimistic before starting the whole process because she's a very smart girl, and I thought she'd like the idea and catch right on. Boy was I wrong. The book I read, Potty Train in Three Days, made it sound so easy.

Here's how the first day went: I felt like I was living in the bathroom with her. And when we weren't living in the bathroom, she was peeing on just about every surface of our house. Just as I would get one mess cleaned up she would have another accident. And most of these accidents occurred either just before of just after she'd been sitting on her potty for several minutes. The laundry was quickly mounting and my patience was waning. By 2pm, she'd had about 7 accidents and a couple of successes, and I was almost in tears. I was trapped in my house constantly cleaning up pee, hadn't really had any time to take care of many of my own personal needs like a shower or lunch, and was wondering why on earth it didn't occur to me to stock up on upholstery cleaner before starting all of this. By the end of day one, she'd had 7 or 8 accidents and a total of 4 successes. I was really questioning whether or not to continue the next day or just let her wear a diaper forever. She cried every time I told her to sit on the potty and didn't seem to have the interest anymore. Many people suggested a sticker chart which I had already planned and made. Sadly, it didn't really interest her the first day, but it certainly helped over the next several days. The rewards were things she loves like chocolate pudding, M&Ms, playing with bubbles, and watching Curious George.
Day 2 proved to be much better. She wasn't going as often and seemed to be starting to figure her body out. She had 4 accidents and 4 successes. She also pooped for the first time in the potty this day, and quickly learned that it's way better to do it that way than in a diaper. In fact, she started doing better with potty training in general when we put the toilet ring insert on her little potty on top of the big toilet this day. She's preferred that ever since then or even sitting on the big toilet without it.

I should also mention one thing I've done differently from the book is continue to put her in a diaper at night for several reasons: I still have a few diapers leftover, I don't want to be changing bedding in the middle of the night, and she needs to be more consistent about waking up with a dry diaper before I'll even attempt to let her go without.

Day 3, she was accident free!!

It's now been 2 weeks since we started the whole process and she's doing very, very well. Last week she had 3-4 days where she had one accident a day, but it's been about a week since she's had any at all. She stays dry through her naps no problem, and she's even been waking up dry in the morning more often. Even better, she's learning to hold it a little longer so she's not going every hour like she was the first week or so. She's used public restrooms a few times without problem too, so I don't have to be afraid to leave my house anymore!

I'm very proud of Bridget and how well she's doing, and I'm just glad I stuck with it even though that first day was so horrible.

Anniversary

A couple of weeks ago Nate and I celebrated our 4th anniversary. In some ways that doesn't sound very long, and we both actually feel like we've been married a lot longer than that. To celebrate, the three of us watched our wedding DVD (which Bridget seemed to enjoy) before dropping her off at my sister's so we could go out to dinner.

On our very first date, Nate took me to dinner at Rodizio Grill. Because we hadn't been back since that day, I decided that's where I wanted to go to celebrate. It was a great date and only lacking an IMAX movie (also part of our first date). If it hadn't been a weeknight and we didn't have a 2-year-old to get home, maybe we would have squeezed that in too.

Las Vegas Family Reunion

Now that it's been 3 weeks since our trip and my siblings that blog have all blogged about it, I guess I'd better stop procrastinating and post about it myself.

Memorial Day weekend was our trip to Las Vegas for the first ever Wilkinson Family Reunion. Since all of my siblings are scattered across the country and we hadn't all been together since Nate and I got married 4 years ago, we decided it was time. We rented a huge house complete with a pool and spent Saturday evening through Wednesday morning there.

There weren't many planned activities and most things were optional, so it ended up being a very relaxing trip. Saturday we pretty much just got settled, made trips to the grocery store, and had dinner. Sunday, some of us went to church and just relaxed. One of the mandatory activities during the trip was going through and distributing the many family photos from the house we grew up in. Here's a picture of some of the sorting fun:

Monday was mostly spent in and around the pool. We thought Bridget would love swimming, but Nate's approach didn't seem to work with her and she cried most of the time she was in it that morning. You can definitely tell from this photo how much she's not loving it:

Monday night, most of the adults went to the strip to see the Cirque du Soleil show "Mystere" while the kids stayed at the house with me, Nate, Emily, and Enoch. As part of the getting ready for bed routine, we had a little story time:
Tuesday morning was the other mandatory activity - getting some professional family photos done. We haven't seen most of the photos yet, but here's a peek at one of the group shots:
Tuesday evening as the trip was quickly coming to a close, I was determined to try to get Bridget to like the pool. It took a lot of convincing just to even get her to put on her swimsuit, but by letting her enjoy the pool at her own pace, she decided she liked it and didn't want to get out. It's just too bad we had to leave the next morning.
Overall, it was a great trip. Awesome weather, great family, and good times. We look forward to the 2nd Wilkinson Family Reunion at some point in the future.