Adventures in Potty Training - Day 1

Today is the day.  After much procrastination, we are starting to potty train my 2 year old. My oldest is so excited to teach her and while I am excited to stop changing diapers the overriding emotion here is fear. I keep reminding myself that I have a fully trained 5 year old at home, it wasn't that hard...was it? 

The truth is, I didn't train my oldest. I was a full-time working mom when she was in this stage and my day-home provider trained her. Of course I had her on the weekends and evenings but I seemed to mess up any progress she made during the week and set them back for Monday morning. I also had a fantastic day-home provider who washed, dried and folded soiled clothing before I picked her up. I had to deal with far less potty-training messes that the average mom and yet I still look back and cringe at this period of my oldest daughters life. 

Potty-training was a bit of a nightmare to be honest. My daughter used to pee on the floor when I put her in time out so that she wouldn't have to stay a full two minutes.  It was frustrating to see her have impressive control like this, then have an accident a few hours later because she forgot! Don't get me started on the poo-covered room I found more than once after nap! I remember a ton of tears (mine) and it seemed like other kids figured it out overnight where mine seemed to take a full 6 months to master her new skill. I realize that all of the issues we had probably had more to do with me that her. I was a first time mom with high expectations and to little patience.

So today, we set out on this (hopefully painless) journey, I'm hoping that I learned something the first time around and I'm not going in quite as blind as I did 3 years ago! I have to admit my heart is broken a little that my baby is grown up enough for this stage but we'll take it one hour at a time and pray that she catches on quick!