I Will Survive....potty training

First I was afraid.
I was petrified.
Kept thinking I could live without you diaper-fied.
Now we've spent so many hours, singing you the potty song,
And I grew strong.
And we've learned how to get along.

10 days into the PT, and I feel like we've turned a corner! I feel hopeful. This torturous transition will NOT last forever. Yes, there will still be accidents and frustrations big and small, but I'm seeing the light at the end of the Pampers tunnel. I'm worried that he'll relapse when the new baby comes, but that's OK. We have the foundation laid. I have learned from my mistakes and learned from our successes.

One of the first things that a mom-to-be learns is that EVERYONE has opinions and stories about childrearing...from conception to graduation (and beyond, I'm sure.) Also, we get our share of the "whatever worked for me and my kid is 'right'" mentality. For this momentous milestone, I was able to take a little bit of advice from many different sources. Some of it worked really well for us and some of it just did not. One book I read AFTER we started said rewards like stickers and candy don't work, setting the timer doesn't work, little boy "guards" don't work. I'm glad I read that after the fact, because all of those things worked pretty well for us! I also have heard about the "one day" technique for a long time. NOT for this kid! It took at least 4-5 days before I felt like we made any significant progress. I guess you just live and learn and figure out what works for your situation. I will say that I do not advise attacking this truly all-consuming (seriously--I've had dreams about it) task while 9 months pregnant. It's hard enough, and being huge, uncomfortable, usually in pain, short of breath and exhausted has not made it easier.

The victory story (for now) is this: Carson has gone three whole days with NO accidents, and that includes several trips out of the house in big boy underwear. To celebrate, we all went to Baskin Robbins last night for a scoop of ice cream. As you can see, the Big Boy is wearing the same shirt he was wearing last week during the intense training. Let's just say we've been doing a lot of laundry around here.

So, as with all the others who bestowed wisdom and advise onto me, I now have a wealth of tips, suggestions and advise of my own whenever anyone is interested. ;) But the best advise is...DON'T GIVE UP!