An Announcement

(No, I'm not pregnant.)

You guys.

Two weeks ago...

...this happened.

Brooklyn.  On the potty.  Do you know what this means?  For the first time EVER, we have ONE KID - a lone, SINGLE child - in diapers.

*happy dance + all the praise hands + thank you Jesus AMEN*

We had borrowed a potty chair from a friend when we originally did the potty training dance back in June, but never really used it at the time.  It's been sitting on the top shelf in storage in the garage ever since, just waiting to be returned.  But one afternoon, Brooklyn spied it, and asked, "That my potty?"  "Um...yeah!  That's your potty." "Oh.  Okay."

And that was that.

Until the following afternoon.  When she woke up from her nap.  And people, I have changed a LOT of diapers in the past 2.5+ years, but this one was in the Top 5 WORST.  For sure.  And I told her that, y'know, if she would just USE the potty, this wouldn't happen. We wouldn't have to clean it all up because everything would just go in the potty!  Wouldn't that be nice?  

"Oh, " she said, "Okay.  I go on the potty soon?"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!!!1!

Since her previous response anytime I brought up the potty and the actual use of it had been something like, "Yeah.  I use the potty!  But no yet.  No yet, mommy" I JUMPED on this train: "Yeah!  This afternoon!  Let's go get the potty!  We can go get it right now!"  And it WORKED.  "YEAH!  I go get my un-nerwear!"

*more happy dances + praise hands that Tyson works from home since there was no way I could get that potty down from the top shelf of the garage otherwise*

And she's done awesome.  Unlike last time, when we set aside an entire weekend devoted to the art of potty training, this time we had plans.  And it wasn't like we could just cancel or suddenly set aside a bunch of time to go the "all potty training all the time" route like before.  Not to mention that after the emotional exhaustion of ALL things potty and all the freaking TOGETHERNESS of our last experience, I think NOT focusing on the potty ALL the time was good for the lot of us.  And she did pretty well.  In fact, she's done a terrific job keeping her underwear dry and telling us when she needs to go.  Or just GOING on her own.  Girl has an independent streak.  I KNEW that she was going to have to decide to go on the potty on her own, I just was and still am a bit taken aback that it happened so suddenly. We have some things to work on, but they're just normal toddler potty training things.  And we're only two weeks in.  I mean, Caden was a rule-following potty training machine, so I can't use him as my standard.  She's even started pulling up her pants and underwear BY HERSELF, which is still something that Caden asks for help on.  (Or doesn't ask for help on. It's a 50/50 chance that I'll just see a bare toddler butt, the pants wound down around the ankles, playing somewhere in the house.  I take that as my cue that hey he went potty sometime fairly recently).

I have to say, I'm actually not completely convinced that it's a full step forward, since we went from carrying one set of diapers for the twins and one set of diapers for Nolan in the diaper bag, to carrying one change of pants/underwear for Caden, one set of diapers for Brooklyn, and one set of diapers for Nolan, to NOW carrying one change of pants/underwear for Caden, one change of pants/underwear for Brooklyn, AND one set of diapers for Nolan.  Is this actually an improvement?  My diaper bag and shoulder are not so sure.  

Still, one kid in diapers?  It's a potty training miracle!  Amen to that.

Let's go, slacker.