Potty-training?

i've heard all kinds of advice against potty-training your child before you're about to to have another one, but i've thrown up my hands and said "what the hey?"

rachel has been really interested in the potty for a couple months now. she's actually started saying "i wanna pee pee in the potty" when she sees me go. what am i supposed to say to that? no, you can't pee pee in the potty? i don't think so. since i have a 4 day weekend with nothing much to do i thought we'd give it a try. no pressure. no big girl panties yet. just an attempt to land some urine in the proper place.

we had our first attempt tonight before bed. i told rachel we were going to go put her pee pee in her own potty and she shot in the bathroom so fast. i laid out a towel and put her little girl potty on top and stripped her down to that cute little bare bottom. we read her favorite stories and sang lots and lots of songs for about 30 minutes. no pee pee. and her bottom was getting a very red ring around it from sitting on a hole. no big deal. i just wanted to give it a shot and give her a fun experience playing with her big girl potty. now rachel loves to be naked, so i decided to let her run around the bathroom and keep playing for a few minutes (and hey, an accident on a tile floor is definitely not so bad to clean). she wanted to climb in the bathtub and play, so i lifted her in. it didn't take her long to figure out her bathtub toys were pretty boring with no water, so she picked up her washcloth and "cleaned" the tub for me. what a helper. then i heard the tinkling! she peed in the tub! not exactly the potty, but hey, a contained area meant to hold moisture! i really just wanted her to experience peeing with no diaper on to see what it feels like. so i call our first attempt a resounding success.

and it only took 45 minutes.

but when you have such a great little girl who loves to sing her heart out about how God made her, the whole chore part of the process is completely eliminated :)