P Day

This has been a long week in the Hahn-Ganser household. A whirlwind of illness swept through, hitting first Robin, then me, and ultimately Lydia. We were pretty much incapacitated for the week, save required things at work and one outing that I had been looking forward to for months (look for a blog entry later today). A combined four sick days and one prescription of Amoxicillin later (Lydia had strep--eek!), we are back on the mend.

In the meantime, Lydia hit a major milestone. In a 24-hour period, she used the potty a whopping five times. FIVE TIMES! We started potty incentives awhile ago--a silly band and a cupcake sticker card in the bathroom--we add a sticker every time she uses the potty. On Thursday, she announced while in the bathtub that she had to go "peepee." We put her on the potty and lo and behold, she did! Commence application of cupcake sticker to card. On Friday, she told us, she wanted a cupcake, grabbed the stickers, sat on the potty, and did her thing. I think she has figured out that she can manipulate the system, and used the potty three times in one hour. I think with Lydia, our little reward game is key. She got super excited to pick out more stickers when we went shopping yesterday.

Anyway, yesterday we decided to take the plunge--or at least dabble our toes in the water. We bought some panties at Target, and when we are at home, Lydia wears them. Today Lydia and I went to run some errands, and she wanted to keep her panties on rather than switch to a pull-up, so we went with it. An hour later after driving around with property insurance in the form of a plastic-bag-lined carseat, we arrived home with a dry little girl. From here on out, we will do the same thing--follow Lydia's cues. If she wants to keep the panties on, we'll keep them on. If she wants to switch back to pull-ups, then pull-ups it is. We'll see how everything plays out when she goes to school tomorrow; my guess is she'll stick with pull-ups.

I do not expect this to be the end of Lydia's potty training story. In fact, I expect the whole process to take months, but I am pretty pumped at this reminder that eventually, there will be an end to diapers. As I have dropped bag after bag of dirty disposable diapers into our garbage can and purchased package after package of diapers and pull-ups, I have really regretted not giving cloth diapers a try when Lydia was born. The environmental guilt factor and pocketbook effect have grown steadily, and consider this my public commitment to giving cloth diapers a try should we go in for round two someday. I am eager to get to the point where we are washing panties rather than throwing out diapers, knowing that there is nothing we can do push Lydia to get potty trained until she's actually ready.

Until then, I will ride the high of Lydia's pride every time she uses the potty. Her excitement is pretty awesome!