Part 1 - Potty Training

Last October/November, I realized that I'd soon have two kids in diapers if I didn't do something about it soon ("something" being to potty train Bailey).  Knowing that we would be traveling to California for Christmas, I didn't start anything at that point, but had grand ideas of potty training her while in the states.

Fat chance.

With all the jumping around from house to house that we did while visiting friends and family, there wasn't much time to dedicate to potty training.  My mom did buy her a little potty that she sat on from time to time, but she only actually went pee in the toilet a handful of times.  Sheer coincidence; nothing we could congratulate ourselves over (though we did, of course).

All smiles on the potty at
Grandma and Grandpa's

Come February, we were headed back to our kid-potty-less house in Paraguay still in diapers.  What's a girl to do?

Within a few weeks of being back in Paraguay (and the baby coming in less than a month at that point), I found a training potty and placed it in the bathroom along side our big toilet.

Bailey FREAKED OUT!

And by freaked out I mean absolutely refused to even look at the thing, let alone sit on it. The legalistic I-told-you-to-sit-on-the-potty-so-you-better-sit person inside of me wanted to smack her little tush and discipline her into sitting on the potty, but reason won out as I realized that I didn't want potty training to be any more traumatizing than it had to be.  For the next few weeks I just kept asking (not telling) her if she wanted to sit on the potty after nap time, before bath time, whenever I went to the bathroom.  Usually her answer was "no," but after a while she warmed up to the idea of sitting on her pink toilet.

Finally comfortable on her potty in Paraguay

Now Boston was set to arrive at pretty much any point and Bailey was still sporting her diapers.  And I was still determined NOT to have two in diapers.

Grandma (a.k.a. Graw) and Papa to the rescue.

The day after my mom and dad got to Paraguay, we officially started "Operation Ditch the Diaper".  Our strategy was simple (adapted from Pottywise):

1 - No more diapers
2- Bailey sat on the toilet every 15-20 minutes
3 - She sat there for 4 minutes
4 - She earned a sticker for trying and got a treat (a few pieces of a sugary cereal) for actually going pee in the toilet

Simple. Crazy. And exhausting.

Thankfully it was still warm enough
to run around naked; it saved us a
lot of clean-up!

We spent the next week living by the obnoxious beeping of the kitchen timer telling us that it was time (again!?) to sit on the potty or that we still had more time to wait it out on the seat (it's only been a minute?!).

Books...one of the few "toys" on the list of approved toys
to take to the bathroom (sippy cups did NOT make the cut)

The first couple of days we were pretty much homebound, helping Bailey get the hang of things.  But we couldn't stay in the house forever, so we would put a diaper on her to go to the grocery store (with panties on top, at Bailey's insistence).

Adding stickers to her chart after potty attempt #2,592

The whole thing was a three-steps-forward, two-steps-back experience; one day she would go the entire day without an accident.  The next, we'd be washing out panties every hour.  But within three weeks, she was pretty much trained.  She'd even tell us "POTTY!" while out and about (and we'd have to scramble to find a bathroom).

So proud of herself!

One day, we were walking home from Brandon's school and she kept shouting "Potty! Potty!"  I tried to reason with her that she had her diaper on and that it would be okay to go in her pants, just this once.  She wouldn't have it.  She was a MANIAC the whole walk home and started peeing just seconds before sitting on the potty.  Mommy should have skipped the lecture and focused on getting that girl home!

Whenever she sat around the house,
she had to sit on an absorbent pad;
I learned that one the hard way!

Nowadays Bailey is a champ at going potty. She still hasn't gotten the hang of how to pull her panties up over her booty, but she can sit down and get things going without any help.  The past week she's even been wearing panties during nap time (after a week of dry diapers during naps) and has woken up the past two mornings with dry diapers, too!  She's incredible.

Oh panties!  Top - training panties
Center - "normal" 2T panties
Bottom - Paraguayan panties :)

There is NO WAY that our potty training with Bailey would have been even remotely successful if not for the help of my parents.  They kept the timer going when I was too tired to care anymore and wouldn't let me throw in the towel and resort back to diapers.  Mom washed out countless pairs of panties and cleaned up too many accidents to count (thank goodness for tile!).  Papa even helped get her on the potty when both of our hands were busy with Boston and other household chores.  And of course Brandon was around to make jokes about the whole thing, making Bailey laugh as she sat for four (painstakingly slow) minutes on her potty.

It definitely took a village.

Still to come?

Part 2 - Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Poop?

Part 3 - The Girl Who Cried Potty