Adventures in Potty Training...Day One

I vowed I would never be a pushy parent...let nature take its course with milestones.  I think I did a fairly good job up until this point (not really I am probably more pushy than I would like to believe).  But seeing so many of my friends currently working on potty training with their little ones, I felt compelled to give it a college try and work on teaching Claire.  I sought advice from family, friends and literature and figured I could do it.  I mean how hard can it be, right? Even my mindset was all wrong for this fledgling process.  I should know better with Claire because she is the most headstrong child.  Even though she has given me cues, she has never taken the initiative of wanting to go on the toilet.  In fact, she always meets me with such negativity that I was already behind the eight ball before starting. 

My first wrong was not having the proper incentives:
1) cute undies (the girl loves her fashion) -  I presented her plain bloomers...already in trouble.
2) rewards - We have been out of town for two weeks and my pantry is barren.  There wasn't even a rogue Halloween candy to pique her interest. 
3) visuals - no stickers, markers or chart to map out her progress (the diligent and smart moms swear by this). 

So with daddy back to work and a dreary landscape, I figured today was the perfect time to really dig my heels in.  Within fifteen minutes of being diaper free (and countless times asking 'do you have to go potty?'), she had her first accident.  No biggie...clean her up and onto the next dull pair of bloomers.  An hour passes and another wet set of bloomers.  At this point my frustration is showing.  Claire was defeated and begging for a diaper.  I was determined to remain steadfast (consistency is key, right?) and resorted to my last option - including Norah in on the process.

Beginning our training session!

So we all hunkered down in the bathroom.  Claire on her musical toilet and Norah on the training seat on the actual toilet.  Then what happens? Our twenty month baby Norah not only goes to the bathroom, but she does the ultimate #2 (disclaimer: being a parent causes you to blur the lines of what is and isn't acceptable conversation topics and therefore divulge bathroom behavior willingly).  She owned it though.  To watch her was nothing short of Norah...she hopped off like it was no big deal.  Yet this tactic caused a friendly competition with Claire.  She followed suit by doing a modest #1 and then called it a day.  I rewarded them with jelly beans (we made a Kroger run to score a proper incentive) and gave them a lot of high fives and hugs.  Not too bad for a first days work.  Who knows, maybe I can kill two birds with one stone and get them both trained together (oh how wishful my thinking is). 

Capturing the successful moment!