Potty Learning

I usually blog at night, and have "scheduled" posts for the next day. It means the posts usually happen in the morning, and I don't have to worry about posting during breakfast and such. Works for me! Since our internet went out though, my schedule has been kind of upset.

I actually had an entire different post planned, which will still probably take place tomorrow. But, last night, my little girl did something that changed todays plan.

MY SIXTEEN MONTH OLD PEED IN THE POTTY!

                                                                                                               Who me?

Now, I know that she's not going to be prancing around in underwear next week. But it's a step.

I subscribe to potty learning instead of potty training. Training makes me think of dogs, and I don't like thinking of my kid as a dog... so I call it potty learning. I am teaching her to use the potty like a big girl, not training her to do so (and training, in my opinion, insinuates discipline, which I don't think has a place ((or has a very small place)) when it comes to using the bathroom).

My husband thought I was crazy when I purchased Keevia a potty chair right after her first birthday. "She's too little!" he exclaimed, "She can't even walk yet!"

"I know" I replied, "But I want her to get used to it." And that's exactly what we've done. We're getting used to the potty. Every night, when I'm running her bath, I strip her off naked and put her on the potty, and ask her if she needs to pee. Some nights she sits there happily, some nights she fusses as soon as I put her on there. I usually leave her there for, oh, 20 seconds if she fusses, then help her off. I never want to force her, or make her be wary of the potty.  If she's happy, I let her sit there until the bath has ran. I'm not even that consistent about it. We bath at Mamaw's house once or twice a week. Sometimes she and I take showers together.

Night before last (Tuesday night), I sat her on the potty and she fussed, so I got her back off and went along running her bath. I moved my foot a little and noticed that rug under my toes was wet... sure enough, after looking at her legs, I saw that my little stinker had promptly peed all over the floor. So I simply said: "Keevia, did you pee? It's okay baby, but when we have to pee and we don't have a diaper on, we pee in the potty, not on the floor. Let's get in the bathtub." I threw the rug in the wash and bathed my kid. After setting her out of the tub all sparkly clean, she took off, naked, towards the living room. I followed her, then went into the bedroom to get a diaper. I heard Carl go 'Uhoh Mommy! She just pooped on the carpet!' I came out of the bedroom going "REALLY? Really!!!" and then noticed he was laughing, he told me he was joking, then I looked down. "Well, she didn't poop, but she did pee!" So I repeated my little "We pee in the potty" spiel.

Fast forward to last nights bath time. Per usual, I stripped her down and plopped her on the potty, then went about getting the bath temperature right. No fussing! Once I got the temperature situated, I turned around and she signed "All Done" and held out her arms, and I got her off the potty chair.

And the rejoicing began.

So where do I go from here? I'm just going to keep on keeping on. We're learning the "potty" sign, and I ask her when I go in the bathroom if she wants to sit on her potty. I know we're months away from truly being "learned", but hey, a step is a step.

I honestly never thought I'd get so worked up over a little pee.