Big Girl Days!

Last Tuesday, I had a conversation with one of Evie's teachers that filled me with Great Hope.  She told me that Evie had been talking that day about how she wears panties at home.  She encouraged Evie to bring her panties to school the next day and Evie agreed.  My heart flip-flopped.  Could it be?  Can she do it?

In the words of a recently successful presidential campaign slogan:  YES SHE CAN!!
The next morning, I loaded Evie up with four pairs of pants, shirts, and panties, an extra pair of shoes and a few pairs of socks.  I sent her to school with this huge bag of clothes; she looked like she was about to go away on an long trip.  When Tim picked her up from school that afternoon, he received an excellent report:  She asked to go to the bathroom all day long, she did not have a single accident.  We have begun calling this kind of day a "Big Girl Day."

She has started taking pride in being "a big girl", which means doing everything by herself from going to the potty to washing her hands.  Also, we have begun rewarding her with a "special story", which is a book of her choosing that we read to her after she successfully uses the potty.  For some reason, calling a book read to her as "special" really does make it special to her even though we read books to this child all the time day and night.  Another useful tactic is describing to her what would happen if she did have an accident: "If you pee on yourself in the grocery store, we will have to stop shopping, and they will have to send people to clean up your accident, and everyone will see what will happen…"  The specter of shame--it works.

Since then, Evie has been accident free at grocery stores, on long neighborhood walks with her Daddy, at church, at school, and at a restaurant.  When we are about to go somewhere new, Evie always cautiously asks, "Do they have a potty there that I can use?"  Of course, she still has accidents: the kinds where she looked like she was trying to make it and didn't quite get there, and the kind where she didn't even try.  But I would say at this point we are inching closer to 50% accidents and 50% accident-free.

And I am only half-way through my hidden insurance pack of pull-ups.  I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and I LOVE IT.