"Yesterday was plain awful!"

But today was great! Readers, be warned - I'm writing this post to document the horrors and successes of potty training, so that I can look back at it when I have to train James in a couple of years.

I started off the day with a haircut at nice salon (thanks Katie for watching the kids) to pre-pamper myself. That was a great way to start the day, AND my hair looked fantastic as I cleaned up poop.

I'd been telling Annie we would start after lunch, so I put James down and we got ready (aka, she put on underwear and I panicked). We followed the potty train your child in less than a day method. So I showed Annie the steps and then she taught her doll how to go to the bathroom. She loved this step. She started trying after that. We had NINE accidents in the few short hours before bedtime (I, foolishly only had 7 pair of underwear, so I was frantically doing laundry after we'd gone through about 4). And about half of those involved poop. I'm not sure why she went #2 so much - I really thought we were safe after the first one because she rarely goes more than once in a day, but no, we had SEVERAL more after that. And, true to what I'd been told, the accidents would always occur when I was slightly distracted. She did have a few successes, but I felt like they were just luck of the draw - like we happened to have her on the toilet on the right time, not that she actually got it. I called Brad in desperation and told him that he needed to come home asap because I needed a break. Luckily he got home quickly, and the night went much better after that. I'm not working on nighttime yet, so when I got her in the diaper for bed, a HUGE wave of relief washed over me.

Just to make things a little more interesting, James woke up from his nap with a fever and was super clingy and grouchy.

After a Snickers ice cream bar, I was feeling a lot better. I got a great night's sleep and felt ready to face a new day of it.

This morning she had one success and then an accident, and I was pretty sure we going to have another day just like yesterday. But then that was it until 2!!! We even had to go to the doctor for James (ear infection) and she went to the bathroom before, stayed dry there, and went when we got back , which I took as a GREAT sign because I think it means she needed to go and held it! I seriously was so proud of her! Then the rest of the day (except for one poop in the panties) she only went on the potty and had no accidents. I told her over and over again how proud I was of her, so much so that she started telling me, "I am so proud of myself."

That kind of sums up for me why I feel so good about this potty training experience. It was so positive. I know I'm not out of the woods, but so far there have been no major battles. Three months ago, we could not have done this. We battled everyday over every detail, and now life is so much more pleasant. I love being a mom again.