Act 1 of 2 ... potty training with Emilie!

Ok, so I'm going to be real with you. Today has been stressful and exhausting. Potty training is still a GO though! This morning I was so preoccupied with breakfast, cleaning the kitchen and cooking salty cheese crackers to get Emilie drinking. There were a lot of accidents this morning, and I blame them on me being distracted (you really need to give the potty trainee 100% attention on day 1). It was really disheartening at first while I was distracted. Emilie had the bright idea though to drag mommy outside for training, and things started looking up from there... even though there were still accidents... quite a few of them, but then she started to improve. Her first pees were with me setting her down on the potty when I thought she needed to go, and when she did, she liked the praise. She really thrived once George started to demonstrate going pee in the potty though, and she was pushing him off for her turn! Between competing with George, and seeing daddy to impress, she started doing awesome (me for an audience? She could really care less, it's ridiculous. She does love my exploding fist bumps though! ;) ). So far she's went a total of three pees in the potty of her own free will and choice (first one when daddy was watching). Counting those three, she's peed in the potty about six times today total. With the success she's had, and the "aha" about the potty today, potty training may still be a possibility yet! It's still too early to tell for sure wither she's really ready for training, but it's a good sign that potty training hasn't been written off during the first half of the day (which is what I was expecting, if it wouldn't work). I'm optimistic, but who knows. Cross your fingers!

During the hardest times today, letting go of all the expectations I've had has really helped me (they recommend you to do that, and not compare to siblings, and that way it's easier to not get upset when they crawl into the tupperware drawer and pee on everything... she did that today by the way!). With Emilie, I'm really impressed with how much easier it has been. I've still had to let go of the expectation in order to keep my cool but moving outside has really taken the stress off, and we've had so much fun today because of it! Emilie is only 18 months old to count too, she's doing incredibly amazing! If she ends up not being completely ready for training, she'll be fine and we'll have another go in the future. No matter the outcome, I'm happy for this experience and the fun we've been having. Now that Act 1 is done, and it's nap/break time, George and I are having some screen time, and then we'll be up again for Act 2! We'll keep you posted :)