misadventures in potty training

we have begun potty training ella. it hasn't been fun-of course, we didn't expect it to be. this weekend was no exception. after one week of fits when i told her it was "potty time" and trying to coerce her using tigger i tried the 3-day method. that didn't work and by saturday ella was on a pee strike. she would hold it in pain for hours! it was awful. well, we decided we would get her a little mermaid doll and sit her down with a small bowl of warm water, and of course, bribe her with chocolate. we were ecstatic when finally around 6:30pm she peed in the potty! here's where it gets good. i had to go to vocal rehearsal for our church's christmas eve services, so ted was solo with the girls sunday night. when i got home i nearly had an accident as he told me this story:

i took both girls upstairs and got ella settled in with her little mermaid and bowl of water on the potty. of course, corinne kept trying to get in the bathroom and play with ella's toys so, i took her into the girl's room and closed the door. corinne and i sat for a while reading books when i heard the toilet flush. i thought this was odd as i hadn't heard the potty song (ella's potty plays a song when you "deposit" something in it). i opened the bathroom door to see ella with the tray for her potty in hand flushing the toilet repeatedly. there was a clump of toilet paper stuck and so the water started overflowing! by now corinne had made it into the bathroom too, so i grabbed both of them, stuck them in their room and shut the door while i tried to clean up the mess of water pouring over the sides of the toilet. while cleaning up ella's potty i realized that she must have had the tray part (the part you pee into) because it was missing. so i went in their room to retrieve it only to find ella putting it on corinne's head like a hat! i asked ella if she had peed and she said "yes", but the tray was dry so i hoped that she hadn't and was just confused about my question. i put the potty back together and finally got the girls settled down for bed.

so, when i (denise) got home later that night corinne woke up (because i had to clean ella and her bed of an accident) screaming- due to the fact that she's also teething. as i rocked her i couldn't help but notice the overwhelming odor of...pee on her head. hmmm....

the silver lining

so, we have started potty training ella...sigh. gone are the days of nobody needing to coerce ella into the bathroom. gone are the days of pee-less smelling laundry. gone are the days when my days didn't consist of meltdowns. there is one silver lining for one member of the family, however. while ella spends lots of time trying to go potty someone else gets all the toys. any guesses who?