Another Year Older

So, yesterday was my birthday. It also happened to be the Columbus Day holiday and federal employees get it off. Thus, Seth was able to be home all day with us! It was a great birthday present. He also allowed me to head out with Amanda for pedicures and we all went out to dinner. All in all a good celebration.

The best part of the day, however, involves our dearest Eleanor.

For the past 3 days we have been working intensively with Ella on potty training (and with the dog, too!). Saturday and Sunday she worked at it and we worked at it and all in all we were totally frustrated and exhausted. Monday morning I woke up and thought, "Today is my birthday. I don't want to work so hard today. Oh, well! At least Seth will still be here to pay attention to the dog." Wonderfully, however, Eleanor woke up in a great mood and told us right away she wanted big girl undies. She then proceeded to have NO ACCIDENTS ALL DAY! We rocked the stickers for dry pants and the M&Ms for pees in the potty. It truly was a party all day long in our house!

Here's the big girl in her Minnie undies:
We still have a lot of work to do to get Ella 100% potty trained, but I'd say she's 80% there. We're still working on the poop thing - timing is definitely an issue. :) And, Ella's still a bit afraid of big potties, so having her go outside our house is still a challenge. She is getting better already, however, as the nursery workers at my Bible study this morning reported she told them she needed to go potty twice and was successful once for them.

We are very proud of our big girl and I am totally relieved that life won't be continually as difficult as it was last weekend. :)


P.S. If you are a mother of a child in diapers, DO NOT get a puppy you need to house train at the same time you begin potty training your child!!!!!