Cue the Angel Chorus!!!!
HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH!
I wasn't sure it was going to happen. I'm sure most parents feel the same way. When you're knee deep in the doo, it seems like it will never end.
And when your boys are quickly approaching the age of 4 and they still haven't figured it out, you start to panic.
But all of a sudden it just started to click! For all 4 for my littles.
JoJo was the first to figure it out. He's a clever little peanut!
Then Louise! I think for Louise, it was all about style. She knew that all the hip 3 year old's were wearing princess underpants and she did not want to a get a reputation as someone who is behind the fashion curve. She does change her clothes at least 3 times a day!
Next was Manny. He was our toughest. He totally got potty training. He knew where the pee was supposed to go. But Manny also tends to have one big giant meltdown per day. And when the meltdown comes it includes tears, sweat, screams, and...pee. There is nothing like a great big wet your pants meltdown to cause Mama and Daddy's blood pressure to rise. But over the summer Manny has grown up a bit. The meltdowns are way less frequent and so are the accidents. And my blood pressure it down :)
Finally, Katriel. She still is just 2 years old, but apparently she didn't want to be left in the dust. And she certainly didn't want to miss out on the princess panties.
I feel that I can make this very important official announcement about the state of our potty trained-ness because it's not just during the day. We are pull-up free during naps and bedtime, too. WHOOOOHOOO!
I also want to point out that we never really did any actual training in relation to the potty. This wasn't a marathon, our kids are not athletes. I know some people swear by those "potty trained in a day"systems, but I personally think that they are really parent training techniques and as I'm sure my husband will tell you, I'm not easily trained. With six kids going six different directions, we needed them to achieve potty autonomy. We could not be held to a schedule of taking our kids to use the loo every 30 minutes. We would never get to leave that one tiny room. So we just banked on the fact that most kids figure it out at some point and tried not to stress about it much.
And low and behold, they did figure it out!
Unfortunately, this means that I don't really have any more babies in the house. At least not any human babies. And that makes me a little bit sad.
Now if only we could get our 4 legged babies to figure it out, too :(
