Praying for Poop

I had already decided to early potty train Miriam before it was even close to time to do so. I read a couple different books, some blogs and then dove in.

It failed.

And then I dove in again.

It failed.

Finally I stumbled apon a little e-book called "3 Day Potty Training Bootcamp."

It was written by a mother of (6 ?) boys. She found a method that worked and then put it on the web. Every one of her boys was potty trianed by 22 months and she swore, when following her method, yours could be too! The best thing about her e-book was that it made sense to me. I knew my goal....I knew the steps to achieve it and it didn't leave too many questions. The other mehods left me wondering what to do next when certain situations arose.

I won't go into details of the actual potty training process, but lo and behold....it worked!

Of course it didn't work in the 3 days because my little sweetheart has a will of freaking iron. But, on the 7th day.....it clicked. And we never looked back.

Well, almost never.

4 months later, Miriam started having some digestive issues and developed an intense and very justified fear of pooping.

And for the following year, whenever Miriam left the room for any period of time, it was not uncommon to have the following conversation:

Mommy: Miriam?
Miriam: I'm right here!
Mommy: What are you doing?
Miriam: Just poopin'.

WE TRIED EVERYTHING.

EVERYTHING.

Do you have a suggestion? Save it. We tried it.

Finally in June, I decided to try something I hadn't tried.

I prayed for her to poop in the toilet. Seriously. No joke. I bowed my head and prayed to Lord Jesus that she would poop in the toilet.

And then in exasperation, I tried the reward system one more time.

I told Miriam that if she pooped in the toilet ten times in a row.....that I would take her to the zoo.

She wanted that prize soooo bad.

The first time she tried was actually really hard to watch. She was so afraid and was battling her fear. You could just see this little struggle going on. But, she did it!

Don't ask me why my husband drew a dinosaur on there. Apparently it's been a long time since he went to the zoo.
She was so excited and told EVERYONE at the zoo that she was there because she pooped in the toilet.

We even got Uncle Al to come.

And Grandma!

And I was there, too. Which, apparently, she was thrilled with.

We also took Eve. It was her first time. She didn't really care.

And it's been home runs ever since! I started running out of prizes. Plus....how do you beat the zoo?

Miriam suggested Disneyland.