Potty Training Update: What Big Girls Do

My poor, dear neglected blog. As the days slip by without any fresh posts and my mental list of future posts continues to grow, I often remind myself of words my friend Kia recently shared: "Living life is better than blogging about it." And if, by sometimes setting my blog aside, I can live a life that honors God more and elevates the real priorities He has given me, so much the better.

Before I tackle anything else on that future-posts list I mentioned, I feel that I owe whatever readers remain a brief update on the topic of my last post. According to Meg's sticker chart, a piece of yellow poster board that resides behind our kitchen trash can, she has now done "wet-wet," as we call it here (don't ask why), on the potty over 80 times. The other stuff she's done at least 22 times.

The rewards she's earned for her labors include: a new dolly (this was the great hope that got us through the first few, very tough attempts at #2), a Twix bar (shared with her brother), several headbands, and a Starbucks date with Daddy. She's been loving all of the stickers and the prizes, as you can imagine. I'm not sure she fully understands that both will soon be at an end...

We are now to the point where I would consider her fully potty-trained. She needs little assistance from us except at night. We get her out of bed every evening before our own bedtime, set her on the toilet, and give her the chance to go, which is what gets her through the night without wetting the bed. Earlier in the game we learned that she can sleep right through wet jammies and a soaked bed. Or take off her jammies and underwear, dump them on the floor, scootch the wet towel under her out of the way, and settle back in, all without ever really coming to. At the beginning we also had several instances where she left us a nice surprise in her undies rather than attempting the potty (or sometimes she would wake up having done this in her sleep), but that stage passed rather quickly. (Hallelujah.)

In short, I am delightedly shocked that we now have one self-service kid and are back to just two in diapers. The other day, when I again remarked to Meg how amazed I am that she just jumps up, does what she needs to do by herself, and comes back to tell me about it, she replied casually, "Yup. That's what big girls do." As if it had been years rather than weeks since she acquired this skill, and as if we hadn't been through an epic struggle to get there! Ah, well. We are proud of our little conqueror, and grateful to God.