Breaking News!

There are two things that keep Lillian from joining Garden of Hope. Her age and her ability to use the restroom. I can’t do much to help with the age thing, but I figured once spring/summer rolled around we’d hit the potty training hard. By hard, I figured I’d throw her in undies, let her roam around until it finally clicks.

My plan may have radically changed in typical Lillian style. Yesterday, she shut herself in the bathroom. Usually this would mean that some illegal hand washing was about to take place, with copious amounts of hand soap achieved by cracking open the lid of the soap dispenser. I peeked in and found a pantsless Lily. I asked if she needed to use the potty and she said yes. Usually, she will only sit on the toilet with a bare bottom for about .39 seconds. This time, I tried to prop her up on the big toilet and she happily sat there. Ella read her books and sang to her. In between potty attempts, I got the potty seat out of storage. It was pretty cold, but the little trooper sat on it and actually used the potty! We were very excited. Even Ella cheered.

Happy with our accomplishments, we celebrated with some M&Ms. and the girls went off to play. About an hour later, Lily came up to me while I was making dinner to say, “Go potty!” so we went to the bathroom and she hopped right up and used the toilet, again!

This morning, we were getting ready for school and as I was blow drying my hair, Lily approached me. Usually while the hair dryer is on, the girls avoid the bathroom because it’s too loud. Lily just marched in, put her potty seat on the toilet and placed her foot stool in place. I asked her if she wanted to use the potty and helped her out, and she went. Again.

Unbelievable.

The rest of the day wasn’t very successful. She tried several times without success, but was very happy to try. We did have a setback at nap when she removed her pants and training pant, then stepped in the mess with a bare foot. And what was once a child who didn’t know how to remove her diaper, she’s learned how…which meant I had a bare-bottomed nearly two year old tooling around the house several times today. Yikes!

Not sure where this will lead, but it’s a step in the right direction. If we had the weekend free, I would attempt the underwear boot camp method. But, since we’ll be visiting friends out of town, it is probably best to not throw our toddler into underwear while we are houseguests elsewhere…it only seems like the right thing to do.