I have been quoted as saying, “Potty-training is an effective method of birth control.” The end product is a beautiful thing, just not the mishaps along the way. Lily, my youngest, began this adventure last weekend.

I have three primary rules when I start to potty-train a child, all of which were broken:

1. Start on a Monday, so that we have lots of practice before going to church.
2. Make sure everyone else is out of the house.
3. I’ve obviously already forgotten my third rule, but I know that I broke it.

I finally realized that Lily would be ten if we kept waiting for a Monday when I could get everyone out of the house. I have used the Toilet Training in Less Than a Day method will all of my kids, so we don’t even talk about it before the big day.

Altogether we’ve had a very successful week, except for one thing: #2. It would not be inaccurate to say that Lily did not even attempt to make it to the potty, and I would much rather clean a dirty diaper than a dirty pair of training pants. Yuck.

Yesterday I decided that we really needed to talk about it, fearful of taking her to church in “big girl pants” until she’d mastered this vital skill. We had lots of false alarms, but eventually – even getting up out of bed – we had success! WOO HOO! Miss Lily attended church for the first time without a diaper. She did have to change clothes, but that was because she went outside and sat in a puddle, which of course is another story…