The Potty Dance or Operation Potty Watch: Phase 1

The time has come, evidently, to teach B how to use the Big Girl Potty (BGP) and to say good-bye (for the most part) to diapers. We were planning to wait until after her birthday to start potty training, but she appears to be ready before we are...as usual. T read an article about Diaper Free Toddlers and this three day method and J is so ready to cut down on diapers (probably because he is the one that always has to make rushed runs to the store five minutes to closing time because we are almost out of diapers) that we decided to go ahead and try it now. What do we have to lose but a weekend? So the basic foundation of this method is to let B run around like Lady Godiva for three days and every time we notice she's about to evacuate we rush her to the BGP and if even a little, tiny bit makes it in we cheer and clap and do the Potty Dance. Yes, the method very specifically calls for us to invent a Potty Dance to make going in the BGP a fun event. In fact, this is the only reward this system uses; that and the fact that she won't have to wear a diaper anymore. And since B recently decided that she is most definitely not in the same category as C, and C wears diapers...she is more than ready to be done with diapers now. So we covered the living room floor with sheets (easier to wash than the carpet) and we moved the BGP into the living room for easy access and we commenced Operation Potty Watch. By early evening we were really starting to wonder if we had jumped the gun a bit and starting to doubt if she was really ready for this step. But T had the idea to just leave her on the BGP, uncoerced...but encouraged, until she went in it so that we could really show her how fun it is to go in the appropriate spot. It took so long for her to go! The last half of "Bambi" and half of "Charlie and Lola" and lots and lots of fluids (and T's slumber party trick of placing B's hand in a cup of warm water...not kidding about this one) later she finally did it!!! And we danced and cheered and clapped and kissed and hugged. Then we dumped it in the toilet and said "bye bye" as it went away. And B was, literally, jumping for joy as we did all of this; she even cheered and danced her way back to "Charlie and Lola" waiting so patiently for her in the living room. She's sleeping in a diaper for now, and then tomorrow we will go sans pants again and hope for even greater leaps and bigger bounds!