HOW MUCH PEE CAN ONE LITTLE PERSON HAVE?!?

After reading blog after blog and talking with lots of friends {AND being pretty tired of seeing Maelee's naked buns poking out from her shirt... ok, that part was actually really cute.  The annoying part was the diaper she had whipped off prior to the streaking}, I finally decided that it was time.

We made the chart:

Bought the Dora panties and the more budget friendly panties:

Stocked up on MnMs,cleared the calendar and let the fun begin!!  {That is supposed to be dripping with sarcasm...}

Actually, I surprised myself by being... yes, I'm going to say it... excited about the whole thing.  She was SO ready and I was ready for her to be day-trained {with all the camping we do every summer, there's no way I'm even attempting night-time... ok, or nap-time yet!}.  She had stayed dry for over 3 hours before, so I figured that for starters I would set the timer for 30 min.  Well...  10 minutes into her first cycle, she comes out of Madi's room holding the package of Dora panties saying, "Uh, oh!  Dora yuck!  Pee, Mom!"  Clean up mess numero uno.  5 minutes later I step in something wet in the kitchen.  I ask Maelee {who had just run into the bathroom} if she had peed and she yells back, "Yep, Mom!  Pee!"  I get that rather large puddle cleaned up and head into the bathroom to rinse out the washcloth, only to find an even BIGGER lake in there!  "Mo pee, Mom.  See?  Look!  Yuck!"  I clean her up, drain the lake and send her and Madi outside.  Literally 2 minutes later she comes back in, "Pee, Mom!  Help!"  FOUR ACCIDENTS IN THE FIRST 30 MINUTES!!  She's killin' me! {which, on a side note, that phrase is her latest adorable phrase, only hers comes out "KI-in me!"}  So, I ended up setting the timer for every 7 minutes that day.  Sheesh!  Day one ended with 8 accidents, 4 pees in the potty and a very small poo {surprised the heck out of me!  Pretty impressive for the first real day of training if you ask me!}.

See that impish look in her eye...? Yeeeah, I do too! :O)

For the first two days I gave her and Madi an MnM {I wanted Madi to be a big part of potty training.  If sister is one of your biggest heroes AND biggest cheerleaders, that's one more person to be a "big girl" for} if she even sat on the potty, just to get her interested and jived for the whole process.  She caught on really quick to it and we spent probably 45 minutes solid on day one going back and forth from the kitchen to the bathroom loading up on MnMs {BUT, she got 45 minutes solid of practice!}.  I know some people aren't in to bribing, but if it helps remind her that this is supposed to be FUN {ha ha} and help her to want to stop and go potty, then I'm down with that.

Day 2 started off with a bang!  Maelee woke up and asked to go potty.  She had on a diaper, but wanted to go in the toilet {yeehaw!}.  To my delight she not only peed but did her dirty business!!  She was absolutely fascinated by it {come to think of it, she's never seen poop in a toilet before so I suppose it's something to marvel at...}.  The rest of the day yielded only TWO accidents!  One outside {no clean-up, yay!} and one while she was playing in my shower {again, no real clean-up.  Double yay!}, but she actually stopped herself that time and finished in the toilet.  We set the timer for 10-15 minutes on day 2, depending on if she pottied or not.  That night was interesting... she realized that we would let her get up if she "needed to go potty"... yeah.  We finally had to get a little stern with her to get her to stay in bed long enough to fall asleep.  But by 11:30pm she had gotten up 3 times, so she slept the rest of the night in her crib.  Gotta admit... didn't see that one coming!

Day 3: Again, only 2 accidents.  Again, outside.  We even went to town and she stayed dry!  We started pulling back on the cheering and treats on day 3, and stopped rewarding unless she actually pottied.  From this point on, we only gave out MnMs if she asked for them.  We also stopped setting the timer and just trying to take her every 45 minutes or so.  We had another rough round of trying to get her to stay in bed that night, and ended up cribbing her again, dang it!

Now, it's 2 weeks into "training" and man oh man am I SO glad I jumped into this whole thing and didn't put it off.  She was DEFINITELY ready to do this.  We went camping this last weekend and she only had TWO accidents!  TOTAL!!  She even woke up dry from naps and nights!  I'm still not going to really push the wearing of panties while sleeping until our crazy summer is winding down, but I'm SO excited that she's doing SO GREAT!! 

I realize that she is the one who made this easy.  I really can't take much credit {beyond sticking with it for those first few days},  BUT... I have SO found my new M.O. for potty training!!!  Now, we just need to adopt a little boy or two to try it on again!  ;O)