MDO out and a HUGE Milestone!

Today is day #4 of Mother's Day Out (MDO).  I thought by today Maddie would be used to the routine a little more than she is.  She's just having such a rough time getting used to it all...I still feel terrible when I leave her, but I know she's in good hands and that this experience will be beneficial to both of us in the long run.  It's just so hard to walk away from my baby girl when she's screaming and reaching for me and I bolt out the door.  I feel like I'm deserting her.  She doesn't understand that this is a good thing, she only sees Mommy bring her into this place that she doesn't like that much and then I leave.  I'm surprised she doesn't hate me when I come to pick her up.  Today is the last day she'll be going until July 14th so we have a 4 week break before she goes back.  I'm so frustrated that we'll have to go through this process all over again in 4 weeks.  BLAH!

Onto the huge milestone...last night I saw Maddie in her "poopy stance" in the playroom so I asked her if she wanted to put the poo poos in the potty.  To my surprise she said "yes"!  I was floored because she normally likes to deny that she's even pooping so for her to agree to the potty was amazing :)  I took her in to the bathroom, unbuttoned and unzipped her shorts (lesson learned...we're going to ALL ELASTIC from now on) and sat her on the potty.  She sat there reading her potty book and then she told me she was all done.  She stood up to show me what she thought was her pee pees, and to her surprise there was something else in the potty!  She told me, "what that Momma?" in a very curious/excited voice and I told her what it was.  We did a big potty dance (after getting cleaned up, of course!), washed hands then she had a Hershey Kiss!  That was a huge deal for her :)  She LOVES chocolate!  I told her anytime she puts the poo poos in the potty she can have more chocolate.  Another thing I had promised her was new underwear when she did poo poos in the potty.  So off to Walmart we went...she wanted Dora underwear or Princess underwear but the only ones they had in her size were Tinkerbell.  I asked if Tinkerbell underwear was good and she said "yes" with a big smile.  She has a Tinkerbell bowl/plate/cup set at home and a placemat so she was pretty thrilled about having underwear to go with it all :)

So, I guess we're entering full force potty training the rest of this week...maybe we'll start on Friday just being in underwear and see how it goes.  I also need to work with Maddie so she can learn how to pull her own shorts down.  I've never given her the chance to undress or dress herself before because I don't like the idea that she'll undress when I don't want her to...now's the time for her to learn!!