i would like to thank....

first of all, let me begin by telling you that we do have 5 other children besides ela and i do love them all equally and unconditionally. i know that in the future there will be many things to say and share about them all at any given time, but i need to pay homage to our ela! she's earned it!

so.....it seems like forever ago (it's been about 8 months now), we started talking potty training with ela. we talked and we demonstrated and we begged and pleaded and bribed and scolded and gave high fives and flushed just to watch the water go down and chanted her name while she sat on the potty and cleaned up accidents all over the house and reminded her that she gets to go to pre-school when she pees in the potty and begged and pleaded some more! now i can say, by gosh i think she has it! i didn't want to say anything before now but the child has gone 5 whole days with no accidents AND has worn her big girl panties everywhere, even out of the house, AND has even been frustrated with herself when she has woken up in the morning and peed in her pull up!!!! IT IS TRULY A MIRACLE!!!

i don't think that you can possibly understand where all of this is coming from unless you know our history. ela is the first child that joseph and i have actually potty trained! my mother-in-law, aka ma-maw to the kids, watched gracie and jackson most of the time while i worked in north carolina and therefor took care of the nitty gritty details of potty training for us.......did we ever say thank you for that wonderful gift? living across the country now, she couldn't do that for us......SOOOOOOO,


i would like to thank the academy for this nomination for the "first time potty training and actually succeeding" award. it was many days and nights of crawling around on the floor with a bottle of resolve in one hand and a scrub brush in the other trying to find the latest accident that miss ela did "last year". i would like to thank first and foremost, joseph, for his constant reminding that one day she will get it......that is what you call faith! i would also like to thank, ma-maw and gamma (my mom) for the many weeks that they spent one on four and then one on six while i was on bedrest and recovering from our latest additions! if it weren't for the two of you ela would have no one else as equally excited as she is to share her fun news with! last but not least, i would like to thank ela for actually doing it!

ela was paid in full the other day with the bribe of all bribes for a 3 year old in training. she picked out her very own surprise dora baby doll and a pack of 7 pairs of brand new dora panties! hey, we do what we have to do! desperate times call for desperate measures!

3 down, 3 to go!