Success!!

Remember 7 months ago?   We started the potty training project with Briana.   I am proud to proclaim complete success!  YAY, Briana (and the jury is still out on my sanity remaining in tact).

Initially, pee training went super smoothly and she never had any problems overnight (we got lucky here - she seriously stayed dry overnight from about 20 months on). We were counting our lucky stars...perhaps a little too soon. The pooping? Notsomuch easy. We had a horrible time with that.  I put this in here because it may help someone else (who has an equally strong willed child such as ours).  We tried a sticker chart, we tried prizes, we tried putting her back in diapers, you name it - we tried it.  Finally, about a month ago, the assistant director at her preschool and I were talking (she'd had a rough day of accidents at school).  Trying desperately to figure out a way to motivate her to go in the potty (she really didn't seem to mind being dirty), we started brainstorming.  Mrs. M suggested that maybe because I was talking to her when I was cleaning her up and telling her that she needed to go in the potty was some one on one attention she was enjoying.  Basically, even though it was negative attention, it was still attention.  And then she suggested that the next time it happened I not say a word to Briana.  Just clean her up and then go about my business.  Then after about 10-15 minutes, talk to her about it.  Well, sure enough, that evening she had another accident.  This time I said nothing to her.  She tried with all her might to engage me, but I just kept quiet.  When I was finished cleaning her up, I stood up and told her it was bathtime and I left the room.  She stayed in there for a good 10 minutes before she came running in to the master bathroom (they like to bathe in the big tub) and proclaimed that she had gone poo poo in the potty.  I told her that she hadn't because I had just cleaned her up but she kept insisting.  So I asked Roger to go check and sure enough she had.  Of course we celebrated and gave her a prize.  BUT - since that day, she hasn't had a single accident. 

And I'm awfully proud of her!