A red-letter day.

Hannah has finally decided that she is going to be a big girl! :) You have no idea what a huge relief this is for us! Physically, I knew that she was fully capable, and could have been fully potty-trained since at least last Thanksgiving, but for reasons known only to her she elected not to. It's been 2 years since we started down this road, and I am so glad to see it finally finished. Really, I was afraid that she would be going to Kindergarten still in pull-ups... But just as it was with giving up nursing, with giving up bottles, with giving up the crib, so it was with the diapers: with every major transition, Hannah has done it entirely on her own terms. Cold turkey, no looking back. It's as if she simply decides, "I'm going to do this today." The difference is that she hit all of the other milestones early - this one was rather late.

So to celebrate Hannah's decision to be a big girl, we had a "potty party" last weekend (this was after she had been accident-free for almost a week). I made a cake that looked like a potty, and Hannah was all about helping me to decorate it. She showed me where I should put the white icing and the blue icing ("that's where I go pee" she said) and was a little upset that we didn't have a handle for the potty. She did like the flowers on the tank though. :) Chris's revolting idea of adding Tootsie Rolls was promptly vetoed. We gave her a couple of presents: she got the Azura fairy doll (from the Barbie Fairytopia movie) and a package of Hello Kitty underpants. With some toilet paper streamers stapled to the top of a birthday party hat, Hannah was transformed into the Potty Princess and had great fun prancing around. And in case you were wondering, Hannah is 10.5 squares of toilet paper tall... ;)

All in all it was a lot of fun. Chris' dad was here for the week, and I got some great pictures of them hanging out together, blue tongues and all. :) And it seems that Hannah got the message - that the potty party was a celebration of her decision to be a big girl and use the potty all the time, and she has done perfectly ever since. But the best part is - and I know it's hard to imagine that anything could be better than not having to change any more diapers LOL - the best part is that with the diapers into the trash seems to have gone a lot of her obstinacy. Because Hannah & I are no longer engaging in a battle of wills every hour over sitting on the potty, we are both more relaxed. We are both happier. Her tantrums in general have subsided dramatically, and a weight that I didn't even realize was on my shoulders has suddenly lifted. The little monster that plagued us for 2 years is gone, and I have my sweet little girl back again. :)

So very proud of my big girl. Now I can finally go scrapbook all those Karen Foster potty charts we used. LOL