Big girl

We've been having lots of milestones for our little girl these past couple of weeks.  First of all, Violet's potty trained!  Yay!

She had been pooping on the potty for several months now, but I hadn't been exactly motivated to have her be completely potty trained.  The logistics involved make having a potty trained girl a total hassle.  I recently read a funny mom blog where the mom complained that children shouldn't be allowed to read until they are good at it.  I feel exactly the same way about potty training.  Even though Violet has most of the important parts of the procedure down pat, there is still quite a lot that I have to do for her.  I have to help her with her clothes, I have to sit her on the toilet, I have to wipe her, I have to re-dress her, and I have to manage the hand-washing.  If I'm lucky, I get to do this in the privacy and relative cleanliness of my own home bathroom(s).  When I'm less lucky, I am doing all this standing in a disgusting public bathroom, admonishing (read: screaming at) Violet not to touch anything.  I don't super mind doing all this when she has to poop, because I'd have to change her diaper anyway.  But pee?  It was much easier to just let her go in her diaper and change her when she reached, uh, critical mass, so to speak.

However, since she started swim lessons, she's been in these disposable swim diapers, and it was just kind of easy to sit her on the potty before and after.  I sort of decided that if I could just be a little more aware of bringing her to the bathroom every couple of hours, it would probably be ok to let her wear underwear instead of diapers.  So far, so good.

Since we made the switch, I notice that she usually wakes up pretty dry in the morning as well.  It's not reliable enough for me to want to risk a middle of the night accident, but I do think our diaper days and nights are quickly coming to an end.

Speaking of nighttime, Violet reached another milestone.  She is sleeping in a big girl bed!  Specifically, she is sleeping in a bunk bed in Jack's room.  The kids have been begging us for bunk beds, so we bought one as a sort of kindergarten graduation present for Jack.  Jack had been sleeping in it for a few days, but we didn't think Violet was quite ready.  Bedtime has historically been a really difficult time for her, filled with screaming and crying and stalling.  But the last few days have been so hot, we installed the window air conditioner in Jack's room.  It didn't seem right to make her sweat it out in her crib, so we told her that she could sleep in the bunk bed with Jack as long as she was good.

This is Night 3.  The first two nights were amazing.  We got through our bedtime routine, I told her "Good night," she said, "Good night" back, and that was it.  Tonight was a little less easy but still much better than it had been.  I'm anticipating some back sliding in the bedtime behavior, but again, it's been a pretty smooth transition.  The one downside is that Jack wakes up so much earlier than Violet usually does, and he's been waking her up too.  But all in all, it's not too bad.  They are having such a good time together.  I hear them giggling first thing in the morning, and it's a wonderful way to start the day.

I am so proud of my little big girl, and I'm trying not to miss the baby that she no longer is.