May 18, 2012

Little Miss Independent

If there is one thing that Audia keeps teaching me over and over again, it is that she does things on her own. There is no 'training' her to do anything. There is no convincing her to do something she doesn't want to do. She happens to take after her Mama in that she is a very strong-willed girl. She does things on her own, when she is ready, in her own way. Frequent blog readers might remember that she basically daytime potty trained herself two weeks before Callen was born. I had tried periodically for months to get her potty trained to no avail. One day she woke up and decided to start using the potty. We rewarded her efforts, but her decision to do it was her own. Periodically over the past few months I have been trying to get her nighttime potty trained as well, again to no avail. But about two weeks ago she started waking up with dry pull ups in the morning, so I created a sticker chart for her. After 5 days in a row, she got a toy out of our toy stash (the word stash makes it sound like we have a pile of toys hidden away. It's more like 4 toys.) Then, after five more days she got to pick out something special at Toys R Us. Audia had decided before we left for the store that she wanted to get a Spiderman toy. She's recently developed quite an interest in Spidey; a boy in her class has Spiderman shoes and for whatever reason she has really latched onto him. I was sure that once we got to Toys 'r Us she would get distracted and choose something else, but she had no interest in the Littlest Pet Shop, Princess, or stuffed animal aisles. It was Spiderman or bust! And now she carries him everywhere with her.

Our munchkin is now going on night 15 without any accidents, and I couldn't be more proud of her. While Audia's willfulness can certainly be a challenge and extremely exhausting at times, it is also one of my favorite things about her. She definitely knows what she wants and goes after it with gusto!

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