Abort mission.....I repeat.....abort mission!!

I'm a little behind on blogging and my type A-ness requires me to go in chronological order. And besides.....I can't blog about the potty and catching up with a great friend in the same post. That's just rude.

And heads up.....there's lots of talk about the potty and big girl panties coming up. Don't say I didn't warn you!

So. On Friday, D and I decided it was time to go cold turkey with the potty training for the big girls. We've tried all kinds of strategies and rest assured it included bribery and even some begging. And none of it worked. We talked about it during the week and decided the BIG day would be Friday so we could have 4 whole days before they went back to MMO. So Friday we brought out the big guns. Dora panties. Oh yes. Just when you thought they couldn't possibly put Dora on anything else. We made a huge deal about the Dora panties and the fact that there's no more diapers. The girls were excited about "no more circles" (their diapers have circles on them) and "big girl panties". We also made a huge deal about how we don't pee-pee on Dora. I can't wait until they bust that one out in public.

We start our day with a pact to make sure each of the girls is on the potty every 20 mins or so and when they're not on the potty, we're asking them if they have to go to the potty. We get a resounding "I no have to pee-pee potty" from Sofia......and Olivia starts to cry "I no wanna pee-pee potty". That's okay...we're just getting started. After our first round of visits to the potty, it's a tie at 1-1. Sofia was excited to go....she wanted candy. She got candy. Olivia cried and refused to sit on the potty. Then she wanted candy. She didn't get candy. She cried some more and set up camp on the kitchen floor outside the pantry doors. D and I settled in for a long day and a short time later, I hear "Awww Olivia....you're not supposed to pee on the chair!" Accident #1. We jumped into action. It was like a beautiful choreographed dance. D ran for the towels.......I grabbed the stain remover.......he pulled the cover off the chair cushion.....I grabbed Olivia. No problem.....we have 10 more pair of big girl panties with Dora's smiling face. I also have to wonder.....Olivia was no longer crying for candy. Did she just get revenge?? Is that why she's smiling?

Time for round 2. Sofia needs a little more convincing this time. Olivia flat out refuses and cries. D and I start talking about how maybe Olivia's just not ready. We certainly don't want this whole experience to be traumatic for her....and we weren't about to tie her down to the potty, but it was looking like that was the only way she was going to sit on it. While we're discussing, accident #2 happens which really just speeds up our decision for Olivia. We replace Dora with circles and Olivia smiles and goes on her way. Punk. I say that with love. I really do.

No problem.....let's focus on Sofia. We continue trips to the potty throughout the morning. She's happy. We're happy. Everyone's happy. Dare we hope? Even one would be a big success and then she could help us with peer pressure, right? So we're busy hoping and getting on with the day when we hear "Daddy....I pee-pee on Dora." (and the couch.) NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I won't go in to the rest of the details which made us ultimately decide that both girls just aren't quite ready, but trust me. They're just not ready. So we're sort of back to square one where the Dora panties have gone back to the drawer.....the circles came back out........but we're still constantly talking about the potty and "Don't you want to be a big girl??"

Here's Olivia's response........
Oh. And all the "big girl" talk has also backfired on me. Olivia looks at me and says "Mommy....are you a big girl?" It would have been much cuter if I weren't sweating away on the elliptical machine when she asked.......