Our fast food miracle

There are certain events in life that are just worth documenting. Potty training the youngest child and ridding your home of diapers for good most certainly qualifies! This is pretty long. Consider yourself warned.

Mostly, I wanted to document this for the sake of getting back into writing down every moment of my girls' lives. I used to write every little detail and lately have found myself getting away from that. I always think, "Oh, I'll never forget that"...but in the end, I always do.

And at this moment I am certain I will never forget the details of the past five days. But 6 months from now, it's likely that it will be a faint memory.

So we started Potty Boot Camp on Saturday. Allison was extremely willing and cooperative, except for the fact that she didn't want to sit on the potty. Besides that, she was totally on board.
To make a painfully long story short, it was a rough week. There were many tantrums, crying and kicking, gnashing of teeth, and overall whining. And Allison had her fair share of fits, too.

Eventually, we got her to sit on the potty willingly. The problem was that she didn't want to get OFF because she knew she had to go. She has amazing control, and hasn't had a single accident. This might be something to celebrate, but when your two year old holds it in for up to 8 hours, it becomes a little scary. She would literally sit for hours on the potty if we let her. We forced her to get up and walk around to visit other parts of the house at some point.

For three days in a row she only went every 8 hours or so. She would tell us repeatedly that she needed to, but then would sit there and bounce around, tapping her feet, doing the "potty dance" with nothing ever happening.

Then she'd hold it all night long and wake up dry. You would think we were threatening her with her life if she had an accident, but it was actually the opposite! I was begging her to potty in her pull-up! I was offering to give her back her diaper just so she could wet in it. She wanted nothing to do with it.

I figured at some point her bladder would just explode. I called the doctor who pretty much accused me of lying when I told her that she had held it 15 hours. It was NOT an exaggeration. She went before bedtime, and then not again until noon the next day.

I like to think of my kids as "unique".

This leads me to the turning point in our week. Wednesday we had swimming lessons and then lunch plans with a friend. When she hadn't gone by 10:00 a.m. I decided to ditch swimming. The last thing she needed was to be put in an 85 degree swimming pool after holding it in for the past 12 hours. I could only imagine what would happen the second her body was emerged in that water. Talk about a swimming faux pas.

I refused to cancel our lunch date, because hello, Chick-Fil-A. Plus I was tired of looking at the walls of the bathroom and wanted to get out of the house.

So I just knew she would have an accident at the restaurant. We were pushing 15 hours and that is (or so I thought) impossible without something major happening. And of course she told me while eating that she had to potty (but up until then she had always done that. She would just end up doing the "potty dance" and crying, with no "release").

We sat in the public restroom, and five seconds later she went. No tears. No dancing around. No whining. It was truly like witnessing a miracle.

So I was thinking on the way home and I decided it must be the "big" potty. We had to try. Even though she protested at first, we tried sitting on the big potty at home instead of the little training potty and BAM...she went immediately. She did the same thing two more times that day. Problem solved.

I have no idea what in the world the difference would be other than the fact that her legs can't do the "dance" on the big potty because they don't touch the ground. All she can do is let them dangle and just relax.

For anyone other than the grandmothers, this was probably the most boring thing you have read to date. I apologize.

But it was more for me to document being witness to a miracle and an answered prayer...right there in a public restroom. Had it not been for that trip to Chick-Fil-A, we might still be sitting on the tiny pink potty, doing the potty dance while whining for two hours.

On a totally unrelated note, Lauryn called her cantaloupe "camouflage" today at lunch and I about wet my own pants. Maybe Allie can give me some tips.