Potty Training: Update

We are a little over a week into this adventure the world calls 'potty training'. It is by far the hardest, messiest and most frustrating thing we have had to do since becoming parents. Changing diapers is easy, but how do you explain to a child that what they have been doing their whole life is wrong...and now they have to learn something completely new (and scary)?? We have had our ups and downs. If we are home, Aly is usually ok...naked, but goes on the potty without much prompting. When we leave and put a pull up on her it is a whole other ball game. She REFUSES to go to the bathroom anywhere else (Except Grandma and Grandpa's and Dave and Jess's)!! I don't even know how to change her mind! It took me a whole week, and lots of bribes, to get her to poop on the big potty...we may have to buy her a pony to go on a public restroom!!

We have been working on a Dora rewards chart: Pee in the Potty = 1 Star Sticker, Pee in the Pants = Loosing a Star, Poop in the Potty = Big Character Sticker...you get the idea. We told her when her chart was totally full we would take it to the store and trade it in for the Play-Dough Ice Cream maker she wants. It was working like a charm until last night...she told me after she peed on the potty she didn't want a sicker for her chart. I asked her why and she told me, "I have too many toys already". What 3 year old says that?!?!?!?

So, we will keep trudging on towards the goal and I will update along the way. It may take a few lot of loads of laundry, but she will be trained in time for pre-school...during the days anyway.