Oh, happy dry day!

Bring out the bells and whistles! Everyone gather around and join in my great celebration!

My kids are pee'ers. We aren't talking occasional accidents, we are talking terrible potty training experiences and flooding their beds every night. They flood their bed and sleep right through, waking up in the morning laying in cold pee. I'm convinced it has something to do with my parenting style, but I've yet to figure out what. Somewhere along the way I just had to reassure myself that they wouldn't be 18 years old and still peeing their pants and then I moved on. As they've gotten older it has gotten better during the day. However, there is still the occasional embarrassment of my 6 year old laughing so hard in kindergarten that he comes home hiding wet pants with his backpack.

We've learned incredible coping mechanisms for dealing with the floods. I almost always carry extra underwear and pants in my car. Ben knows how to strategically cover wet spots with his backpack, sweatshirt or books. And Pullups! Pullups are our best friends. Like clockwork the kids put them on each night before bed. The thought of being without them is even a little scary.

Don't get me wrong, it isn't that I've resigned myself to this. Every few months, I've tried to move them beyond it. We have tried nights of sleeping in underwear, limiting evening liquids, waking them up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Nothing has worked.

Last night, the scariest thing of all happened. I was down to one pullup for 2 kids. Running to the local store to pick up some more isn't an option. There is no where in our little town to buy them without breaking the bank. I had no option but to talk to the kids about it. I explained the situation and told them that one of them would have to sleep in underwear. Little Sarah volunteered. She told me that she thought she could do it.

At dinner I reminded Sarah to not drink so much milk. I had her stop at the potty one last time before crawling into bed. Then an hour after bed time she called for me to tell me she needed to go to the bathroom. She got up and went. And the miracle... when she woke up this morning she was DRY. Dry as a bone! She was so excited and proud of herself. I think I might have been more excited. Ben, who wore a pullup to bed was extremely quiet about the whole matter.

I'm jumping on this. Now that I know she can do it, we aren't going to buy new pullups. Hopefully, the taste of success will motivate her to continue the trend.

Yayyy, Sarah!