Potty Training - Not for the faint of heart!

(NO pictures on this one. I didn't think you would want to witness first hand all our disasters)

I am not super mom (contrary to popular belief). I find it extremely challenging to teach two elementary students, teach a four year old, keep a four year old entertained when I'm not teaching her, keep a two year old out of every thing, and remember to take the two year old potty. I just can't seem to do it. But I persisted and we were successful tonight.

After watching a video clip on NBC's Today show, I decided to try the "Potty Whisperer" technique this evening. The Potty Whisperer takes children into her home, feeds them salty snacks and sugary drinks and claims to be able to potty train them in a day. She doesn't recommend a junk food diet for daily life, but she says that the salty snacks makes kids thirsty and help them have to poop, and the all the fluid gives the child more opportunities to try and go potty.

Tonight I gave Emma lots to drink and then let her run around in the buff for a while. (I tried panties during school this morning and we had several disasters). I was in the kitchen cooking and there were no other distractions, so we worked at going potty for a long time.

Our first time was a complete flop. While helping me clean up the juice she spilled on the floor, she peed on the stool, while standing at the sink. (I think it had something to do with the running water.) After we cleaned up the pee, and finished cleaning the juice, I went back to my repetitive request to "sit down and go potty" Which I think I asked every minute for at least half an hour.

During this time she pooped on the floor after having just been on the potty. She was appalled! "What was that and where did it come from?", was the look she gave me. So we commenced to clean up that mess too. Trying not to be crushed by the overwhelming task this was becoming, I pressed on.

It wasn't long before she started to go again. (after chugging down a Capri-sun that is) While she was standing up listening to my endless mantra "sit down and go potty" she started to pee, BUT this time she manged to sit down, mid stream and at least got 1/2 of it in the potty. YEA, that was reason to celebrate. Two M&M's for the big girl!!

So we cleaned everything up AGAIN and continued. This time I had her sit in front of me, so that I could read to her and show her the pictures. We read a whole book with no action. When the book was finished, I encouraged her to sit on the potty and look at the pictures. EUREKA. She went potty and looked up at with a surprised/delighted look on her face. (her first responce was to jump up and try to dump out the contents, she loves to help dump things) Again we celebrated with two more M&M's. Then I called it a night.

Did I mention that during this entire process she kept asking for a "dipe". Every time that she got off the potty, it was to go get a diaper. And when I would remind her that she was trying to go pee-pee in the potty so that she could have some candy, she would let out this exasperated grunt/sigh, toss the diaper down and head back to the potty. She tried several times to request an M&M with out having done her duty, but the answer was always no. (Although I was tempted, thinking that the sweet taste of chocolate might motivate her in to action.)

Lord give me patience and diligence as we try and jump the potty training hurdle. Grant me the wisdom to know the best way to go about this process and the concentration to do it! I need you help and strength to make it though this next season!