I don't think there is anyone in the world who hates potty training more than me. I just hate it so much.
Echo is three. I have tried potty training her twice before. Each time we'd try for a couple of days and then I would be completely overwhelmed by cleaning up pee puddles and poopy panties so I'd quit.
Let me tell you about a little instance we had the last time we tried that really made me weary about trying again. Echo had FINALLY gone pee in the potty and we had been having a pretty good, accident-free day. She had broken her glasses a few days earlier so we ran into Walmart to get them fixed. She wore panties because I didn't expect to be there long, and she was doing pretty good.
Big mistake.
It ended up taking forever to get the glasses fixed, and while I was talking to the sales lady (who just happened to be an old high school friend of mine), Echo peed a GIANT puddle in the middle of the floor. Like, I cannot express how enormous the puddle was. No wonder she had an accident-free day, she'd stored it all up to make a little urine swimming pool in the middle of Walmart! She immediately started to take off her clothes (because she hates being wet or dirty), and I stopped her because Walmart nudity is inappropriate. Well, I should have let her strip because she completely flipped out. I forced her to keep her clothes on, while I tried to grab paper towels to clean up the mess. This meant I had to carry her with her wet bottom back and forth from the bathroom with a million paper towels that were always a million too few. She screamed "HELP ME! HELP ME!" the entire time I cleaned up the mess. It was busy in the little glasses place with only two workers, so no one could help me and the other customers just watched me struggle. After at least 75 trips back and forth with paper towels I had cleaned up enough of the mess that I no longer felt as bad, but my face was red with frustration and probably some embarrassment, and I just had to get out of there. I announced to my friend who worked there how sorry I was and that we'd be back later to pick up the glasses. As I carried my wet, hysterical child still screaming "HELP ME!" as loud as she could, out of the store, every single person stared at us like I was a kidnapper.
It was such an awful experience that it ended our potty training attempts abruptly. I kind of expected her to get married in diapers after that.
Well that was a couple of months ago, so recently I thought we might try again, but I was dragging my feet because I dread it so much. But about a week and a half ago, after several days of Echo removing her own diaper as soon as she'd pee in it, even if I just put it on her, I got fed up with her constant nudity, and how she was just wasting so many freaking diapers. So I said, that's it, get panties on. We are doing this!!
That day I made her sit on the potty for forever while I sat on the edge of the tub and chatted with her. She played with toys, drank some water and acted silly. All of the sudden she peed in the toilet. She got this surprised look on her face and I screamed "You did it!" and did a really silly happy dance. Scott came in and joined the dance, we both gave her high fives and yelled with excitement and then gave her some candy. Well that was it for her. She has peed in the toilet every single time since. The only down side of the whole story is the poop. She has pooped in the potty twice now, but every other time it has been in her panties and I really despise cleaning that up. Its so gross and horrible. But I think we are finally going to beat this. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. As soon as she gets this down I will only have ONE KID LEFT to potty train. I seriously can't wait for the potty training phase of my life to be over.
Princess Echo sits atop her throne waiting for her number one to come. It did about five minutes later.
