Potty Training 101

Lesson 1: Underpants…

...are not a hat.

Lesson 2: Potty seat…not a hat, either (despite the number of times she did this, I unfortunately didn’t get a picture). We spent the most time on this particular lesson because that potty seat just fit so dang nicely on her head!

Once we got those two things cleared up, potty training the third time around has actually been a breeze. When she noticed that two of her friends were potty trained, Ellie thought this was the coolest thing in the world. For days all she could talk about was, “Jenna goes potty. Anna goes potty.” She wanted to sit on the potty, too. So we would sit on the potty, with absolutely no results whatsoever, about 15 times a day. Every once in a while we got lucky, but more often than not she’d sit happily for a while and then announce, “I done!” Either that, or she’d sit so quietly that I’d forget she was there, only to come back five minutes later and find about 3 miles of toilet paper decorating the bathroom floor.

Then, about three weeks ago, she decided that she wasn’t going to wear diapers anymore. Nope, it had to be panties, just like her sisters, and just like Anna and Jenna. So I told her that was fine as long as she kept them dry. It took two days for it all to connect and now her mantra is “no peepees on floor” as she runs for the bathroom. No sticker charts, no M&M’s, no bribery whatsoever, just a very determined little munchkin who noticed that no one else around here wears diapers, so why should she?