Ready or not it's potty training time...

I will be the first to tell you that there is not much that I know about potty training. I have tried to do some research and read about it, but I have to be honest, I am sure there is some good advice out there, I just have not found it... I think my favorite was the lady on the Pull Ups DVD. She says she tells her daughter to "release the pee." Seriously???? Seth and I just laughed about how our 23 month old (at that time) would have NO IDEA what "release the pee" means!! So, like I said I really don't know much about potty training. I do, however, know two things. 1) If your child is not ready it will be a nightmare and 2) It requires a major commitment from the parents.

Number 2 is the reason why I have been putting this off for awhile now. Abby has been showing signs of being ready for a couple of months. I keep talking about how I really need to get started, but well, I have come up with any excuse I can think of to put it off. I have a lot of friends whose children were potty trained well before they were 2. I will admit I am jealous, but I have had my hands pretty full for the past 8 1/2 months and I have not had the energy to take on that task.

This evening I was home with the kids and Abby was outside playing. I remembered that I had seen her potty chair upstairs earlier this week and thought I should get it down and clean it so it would be ready to use when Seth gets off for the weekend. I figured if we were going to do this, it was going to take us both to make it happen. I had just finished cleaning and putting the chair together and was going to put it in the spare bathroom, so it would be ready for Saturday, when Abby walked in and saw it. She immediately wanted to sit on it. I didn't think much of it so I let her sit on it with her shorts and diaper on. She really seemed to like it and after I made her get off she continually told me she wanted to go potty, so I decided to take her into the bathroom and let her try to go potty. I had recently changed her diaper so I really didn't expect anything. I decided to take the advice I had gotten from a friend to give her a large amount of fluid while she is sitting on the potty. She got a special cup with a straw to drink out of and was happy as can be. After she finished her drink she no longer wanted to sit so she told me she was done. I decided to bring the seat out of the bathroom so if she decided she needed to go potty it would be close by. A friend called and I was talking to her about how I have no idea what I am doing and Abby was continuing to sit down and get up. All of the sudden Abby got up and looked at me and looked down into the seat and gave me a strange look. I looked in the bowl and she had pooped!!!!!!! I started screaming and clapping and acting all excited and she started laughing and clapping too. I gave her a high five and we took it into the bathroom and said bye bye and flushed it away. I put the seat back out and she continued to play by it. She sat on it, got up and started clapping. I told her "mommy only gets excited and claps when you go potty." I looked in the bowl and realized she had peed!!!!!!!! So begins the journey...

I wish I could live in a dream world where the rest of her training will go this easy, unfortunately I am smart enough to know it is going to be a roller coaster ride with both good and bad times. She did go potty two more times on the big potty tonight and one more time in her pull up. (she drank A LOT of water :) ) So we will have to see what tomorrow holds...