Potty-trained!

This whole thing started at the beginning of January. Evie was 21 months old, and one day we were in the bathroom together and she told me she wanted to go potty on the big potty. I was shocked! Honestly, out of all of the parenting milestones, this was the one that terrified me the most. I didn't even really like trying to sell the potties at work. I half-jokingly asked Todd what was really so wrong about sending our girls to college in diapers; they could even double as chastity belts, because who wants to date a 16-year old girl wearing a diaper, right? Todd told me that if Evie was expressing interest, then we needed to jump on this before her interest waned. So he had me bring home a little potty from work one night, we bought her some panties, and we set to work. I blocked off 3 days when I didn't plan on leaving the house, and I set up my laptop on a box in front of the potty, so Evie could watch the Lion King and go potty whenever the urge struck. I made a potty chart on the computer and printed it off: every time Evie peed in the potty, she got to put one sticker on the chart, but every time she pooped, she got to put on two. She didn't get punished if she had an accident, but we would remind her that big girls used the potty. She did very well for the first week, but then she stopped making progress. She would go into a quiet corner, have an accident, and not tell us. Finally, after another week or so of this, I was done. Every single potty-training advocate ever tells you to always be positive while potty-training; do not shame or punish your child for having accidents. But one day, I just lost it. I yelled at Evie that peeing on the floor was ICKY! Peeing on her bed and the couch was ICKY! Peeing and pooping in her panties was ICKY! Big girls pee and poop in the potty and do not have accidents, and if she didn't want to wear diapers anymore like a baby, she needed to only pee and poop in the potty instead of on the floor, bed, etc. Sure, it went against everything I'd ever read on the subject, but it worked! She realized that Mommy and Daddy were serious about this, and she needed to be serious too. She still had accidents sometimes, but they were actual accidents--where she just missed making it to the potty in time--instead of going out of her way to pee in a corner somewhere else. Her potty charts filled up, and we even gave her new Play-Doh cups as prizes for meeting little milestones: She got one when we filled up her chart, when she made it an entire day running errands without an accident, when she told us she needed to go potty when we were still 3 miles from the house and she made it home without an accident, etc. Then Todd and I decided on a big prize if she could go a week without any accidents at all. We thought that was fair because it would challenge her a little bit (she would sometimes go 3 or 4 days accident-free before starting over again) but wasn't too impossibly long. Because she loves the Lion King so much, I thought she would really love getting the Lion King 2 as a big prize. I bought it a couple of weeks ago, and have just left it lying on my desk until we needed it. Today, after only 2 months of working on it, Evie finally earned her movie! She's gone an entire week with no accidents! This is a big accomplishment for a little girl who's not quite 2! Todd and I are thrilled to only have to buy diapers for one baby again. Yes, we still have to buy pull-ups for Evie's night-times, but she only uses one a night and wears only panties during the day, so we don't really mind. It's loads cheaper than diapers! :)
Congratulations, Evie, on being such a big girl! Mommy and Daddy are so proud of you, and we love you!