My BIG girl is out of diapers!

I have not blogged in a while and a friend brought it to my attention today, so this is for you Jeanine :)

I guess I've been busy with my baby girl POTTY TRAINING!! and thats why I haven't had alot of time to write!! It all started when we went to our friend Laura Roskins house for a playdate one Friday afternoon....the kids were running around, being loud, not sharing; you know the usual when little Bella had to use the potty. Irina was insistant on watching and observing the whole thing, she did not want to leave the bathroom! Bella's mom said it was ok for her to watch so she did, when Bella was through taking care of business; everyone made a big deal for her with clapping and tons of praise. This must have given Irina an "AHA!" moment because the very next day, early in the morning Irina said she wanted to go pee-pee in the potty. I wasnt sure about the whole thing at first, my plan was to potty train around age 3; I thought it would just be easier. I did not want to be potty training for 6months, it might work for others but it wasnt going to work for us. I was given a potty chair at a baby shower and it was still in the box on a shelf, I didnt want to get it out unless we were going to use it for the intended purpose. I didnt want her to think it was a toy, I wanted her to know the exact use for that potty. Again, this is just my opinion, it might work for others to leave the potty out but it wasnt our thing. So anyway, I got the potty out, gave it a wipe and told Irina to sit down. She sat and sat and sat for about an hour and then got a blank stare on her face...she was going pee-pee in the potty!!!! I was so excited and proud of her!!! We sang a song, danced and had a sweet candy surprise for her big accomplishment! She did that all day Saturday, she even went #2 in the potty! I was so proud of her! The next few days we made it a point to stay home and focus 100% on potty training, it was going great. We even took her to get some big girl undies, she picked out little boy briefs and we were glad that she wanted to keep them dry and clean. We followed lots of examples from a book called "Potty Wise" which was written from "Tiolet Training In Less Than A Day", both books give lots of useful advice. It took more than a day for us, it took about a week and a half for her to really get it but every day she gets better and better. She still has the occasional accident when we dont make it to the toliet in time but that will get better with practice. Just recently she started waking up dry from naps, I still put her in diapers for naps and night time though. We tried to avoid pull-ups all together and it worked out for us. We just put cloth diaper pre-folds (burp rags) under her bottom in the car AND had to pull over alot at first when she said "pee-pee", that was so much fun! not really, just kidding. So it is nearly 2mths after she started and we are so proud of her! And thankful to Bella for allowing Irina to observe her in action, thats all it took...well that and TONS of patience on our (craig & I) part.