Update on Ellie

Ellie moved from "mobile" to walking very quickly. She was walking as her main mode of transportation by the time she was 10 months old, so potty training took a backseat to exploring.

Between her walking and general business in our family, I hadn't spent too much effort on Ellie's potty training. Basically, I took her to the potty every time she woke up. Since she napped twice a day, this was three times a day. Sometimes she went, sometimes she didn't. No big deal.

Right around when Ellie turned 13 months old, life settled down, so I began thinking about her training again. She generally wakes up a couple hours earlier than Katie, so we have a nice block of time in the morning with just the two of us. So we've been going into the bathroom and I've been letting her run around naked. I got her some bath crayons, and she has a ball writing all over the tub. The first few days we did this, she would release an entire pee on the floor. I said "oops!" in a happy tone, and set her on the potty. The next day, she really learned what was going on. She would start to pee, and then stop herself. I would set her on the potty and she would go a little more, but not the whole thing. She would stand up and play for a while, then this would repeat. It repeated half a dozen times until she let out the whole pee into the potty! From then on, she's been able to release her whole pee into the potty. She still usually does a little dribble first, and then I move her on, but most of her pee goes in the potty. I've taken some days off here and there, because we've all been sick back-and-forth, but we do this whenever we can.

The most amazing part has been when we're not in the bathroom. She REGULARLY goes into the main bathroom, when we're in the kitchen or family room, and looks at me. When I set her on the potty, often she will go. Other times she will have just gone in her diaper. This is happening at least once a day. Today I was helping Katie on the toilet and I looked over and Ellie was sitting on her potty!

One of her favorite games right now is to go into the bathroom and wait. When I ask her if she needs to go potty, she will look at me with glee, and then start running and squealing. She loves "get you"!

It's just amazing how she has been learning with absolutely no pressure or stress on my part. I guess I'll judge when she's "graduated," but right now I am in awe of this potty training method!