My least favorite parenting duty (or maybe it's doody?)

I'll admit it.
I'm awful at potty training...like really bad.
I hate it with a passion.

I guess you could say I successfully potty trained two kids since they are no longer in diapers. Granted, they're 11 and 7. But still...I've been there. Done that.

It's just that I despise the entire process, and for my older ones it seemed to take forever.
With Julie--my mom convinced me that 15 months was a great age to start potty training. Sure. She was trained before her second birthday, but that was 6 months of hard work, frustration and constant badgering a little girl who probably wasn't ready. Then, there was my Johnny. My sweet, lovey, little boy who wanted to please me, but for whatever reason just could not get the hang of potty training. I started him a little later, but not much. 18 months. He seemed to love it at first, and the treats. But that excitement lasted about a week until he resisted and had potty issues almost until he was 4. I can't even think back on that whole thing without cringing. I'll spare you the details.

Needless to say I've been dreading this whole process with Josie. She's a little firecracker as it is--a busy little girl who has a mind of her own. I wasn't sure how or when to start, but she turned 2 in December and Julie and Johnny were thick into potty training by then.

A few weeks ago, she started asking to go potty a few times a day. I felt if I waited any longer, I might miss that little window of where she might (cross my fingers) potty train easily??

I read a book my sister-in-law, Melinda had used for her 2 1/2 year old son, Matt. The whole process, which I think they followed verbatim, seemed to work wonderfully for Matt. He was pretty much potty trained in a week. That sounded so much better than my half-year-plus sagas with my older two.

The idea behind the book is to basically devote your life to potty training for at least three days. The kid runs around naked and the parents follow him/her around with a potty. No one leaves the house until the kid pretty much gets the whole potty training concept. Pull-ups are forbidden and even underwear is discouraged for a couple months.

The book was kind of extreme for me--considering it's next to impossible to stay home for three days straight and focus entirely on potty training when we have two other kids who have homework and a million after school activities.

Starting on Sunday, I decided to try (the book says don't say try, but that's exactly what I'm doing) a watered-down version of the whole concept. While we're home Josie is bare bottom and I leave the potty wherever we are playing. So far. So good. Kind of. Definitely some accidents, but I will say the start is probably better than the other two.

I got brave yesterday and decided to venture out with her sans diaper to Julie's orthodontist appointment. You can probably guess what happened. A little puddle on the orthodontist floor. "At least it's sterile," Melinda joked when I told her the story.

Scott was livid I let her go without a diaper, and I was completely mortified. From now on, we'll be diapering or pull-up-ing for outings. We'll see how this thing goes, but I'm keeping positive. If she's trained by summer, I'll count it as success.