a BIG milestone

A few weeks ago, a girl at work told me that she started potty training her daughter at 15 months!! I honestly thought it was crazy becuase I had never heard of starting that young. Ella would be 15 months in 2 weeks and there was no way she would be ready to even think about it...but then I started thinking, well, why not? So I asked her doctor about it right at 15 months and he said it wasn't too young to start but ONLY if she started showing signs. A week before that she had brought me a diaper and laid down for me to change her, so I have been paying close attention for more of those "signs" and I started reading about potty training. I decided to go ahead and order a potty so that I would have it on hand as soon as she was ready. When we were in Abilene last weekend she showed a huge sign when she was outside with my mom and immediately lifted her dress and touched her diaper after she had pooped. On Monday her potty came in the mail, but it has been sitting in the box, in her closet...waiting.

Well, today we are home, playing in the gameroom around 5:45pm and all of a sudden in the middle of playing she stands up, says "da" and touches near her diaper. So I immediately ask her if she needs to go potty and I see her start to make the "pushing face", so i jump up, run to her closet, pull the potty out of the box, rip off her diaper and put her on the potty. She sort of laughed and just sat there, so I ran off to get my camera (she looked so cute sitting on the potty!). By the time I got back she had stood up and was playing with something else. I sat her back down and said "Ella, go potty". She started pushing and as if she does it every day, she just pooped and peed on the potty and then stood up!!!!!!!! I was SO excited and we clapped and laughed and clapped some more! It was such an awesome moment! I immediatley called Mike and then my Mom. I am just so proud of her for letting me know that she needed to go! Sorry for all the details, but this needs to be documented in her book! :) Her first poop in the potty....1 year, 3 months, 6 days.

I'm not done yet...so then we went downstairs and had dinner. Immediately after dinner, we came up for bathtime and I put her naked little body back on the potty while I ran the bath water and she peed in the potty again! Such a proud mommy!

If any of you moms out there have potty training tips, please share!! I completely expect for potty training to be a process and I realize that it may take a while. But, I'm excited about starting the process. I've read that this is a great age to start because right now, she wants to please me and mimmick me, etc. Once they reach age 2, they don't care so much about pleasing Mommy so potty training can be harder....we'll see what happens!

One thing I do know is that I am so proud of my Ella Pearl!

You made me a happy mommy tonight (and every night)! I love you!