Progress

Today marks week 3 since revisiting potty training and reward charts. So far she's been to the aquarium, to the zoo twice, to the community center tot gym, and with Grandma and Grandpa Lodwig to look at helicopters for her rewards (if you're noticing a descrepancy in the photo versus rewards, I had tossed the first two completed charts a few weeks back). My friend/neighbor Shannon said that if you can make it 3 weeks potty training, then you're golden. I don't know that it's habit with Anya and I wouldn't consider her potty trained yet, but she's certainly surpassed what little expectations I had with this go-round.

We're getting there. She's had a few days without accidents and occasionally goes potty without one of us suggesting it first. Grandma Lodwig told me that while taking a nap (she stayed with them over the weekend while Chris and I took a lovely birthday ski trip to Mazama), she got out of the room, went into their bathroom and then went back to bed when she was done.

All in all, I'd say the reward charts have been a big success. She is starting to get a little bored of them, so I let her pick out some exciting scratch & sniff stickers at the store today. My hope is that if we can make it through just one or two more charts it'll be habit and she won't need any extra incentive.

What's hard for me with this process is that I can't make her do it. I can only encourage, be patient (or at least act it) and give little incentives and corrections along the way. Pressuring certainly doesn't work and actually has the reverse effect. She's doing all the work and all the decisions are up to her. This isn't like taking away the pacifier or sleep training where I call the shots. I guess this is what parenting is about. And it's weird to think that we'll be dealing with things like this (well, hopefully not JUST like this) until she's an adult and the same basic rules will apply.