Mission: Surprisingly Possible!

Friday was Day One of our potty training mission, which we began with optimism because Cubby had made a few successful potty trips over the past week or so. She's only 27 months old, but her doctor keeps saying she'll probably stop getting the MRSA boils in her diaper area once she's trained, so that--plus the looming prospect of having to potty train a toddler while nursing an infant--was our main motivation for giving it a whirl right now. Cub's main motivation? M&M's, lollipops, and high-fives. Here's how it went, minus (most of) the yucky details:

Day 1: Major Fail

• Woke up with a dry diaper but refused to sit on the potty; waited until Mommy took a shower and then relieved herself on living room carpet instead
• 1 successful potty visit, 4 accidents
• Bear and I began considering the possibility that she's not ready

Day 2: Forward My Mail

• Still freaked out and refused to sit on the potty in the morning, which led to Accident #1.
• Cubby seemed to want to go potty on my lap (as I sat on the bathroom floor) rather than in the potty. I decided to interpret this as "Mommy is a safe place" and not "This is what I think of Mommy."
• 2 or 3 successful potty visits, 2 accidents
• Approximately 784 false alarm potty trips, usually about 4 minutes apart, all day long...which, combined with my pregnancy bladder, caused me to feel like a permanent resident of the bathroom and wonder whether I could get my mail delivered there. Now I know why our master bathroom has a phone jack next to the toilet.

Day 3 (today): The Holy Grail

• Woke up with a dry diaper and willingly went on the potty!
• Went out to breakfast with my family and, after 5 false alarms and a few tears, finally used the public bathroom (with her potty ring)!
• Used the public bathroom at Target--one trip, no tears!
• Voluntarily stopped playing outside TWICE this afternoon, announced she needed to go potty, and then went!
• It's 3pm and we have 5 successful potty trips and zero accidents so far. I think I need some more exclamation points, don't you?!!!!

Could it possibly be this easy? I haven't changed a diaper in three days (clothes, yes--mine and hers--but diapers, no!) and I'm sure the path we've worn between the living room and Cubby's bathroom counts as prenatal aerobics...and Cub certainly seems very proud of herself, as she demonstrated when she ran out to my family's table at Coco's yelling, "She did it! She went pooeys on the POTTY!" (My apologies to our fellow diners, whom we also walked past at least 10 times carrying a potty ring. I swear that I used to be a civilized member of society.)

My reward will be, hopefully, a 2-month vacation from diaper changing until Cubby Two is born. Cubby's reward is that Mommy did not take OR post any pics of her sitting on the potty for the world to see. It won't mean much to her now, but someday, she'll thank me.