I don't know if this should be considered progress

Well, I have been working on getting Erin to pull her pants and panties down by herself to go to the potty so eventually I won't have to always "take" her there. I know she's only 2 1/2 so I didn't expect this to go very smoothly, but she's been trying.

Now for today's story. She's been a little...hrmmmm should I say "backed up"... the last day or so. This afternoon she kept telling me she had to go poopy. I'd take her upstairs and sit her on the potty. Then I'd give her some books, and even brought her a cup of milk in encouragement to get her to sit for a few minutes longer than she wanted. Generally this works well, especially in the morning. This afternoon it was not working at all though.

After several trips up the stairs a matter of 10 minutes, she headed upstairs on her own to play in her room. I let her do this because I can still hear her through the monitor in Jeff's room. Anyway, I'm sitting in the basement at the computer and I hear her hollering "potty mommy". I head upstairs with a slight air of relief that hopefully she's at least finally got it out of her system, even if it did end up in her panties. Imagine my surprise when I got upstairs.

Erin was squatting in the middle of the doorway to her room with her pants around her ankles and a very large (and thankfully solid) poop on the floor. She looked at me and had a huge smile on her face...

"no poopy in panties mommy!!!"

She was sooooo proud of herself that she managed to get her pants and panties down and didn't poop in her panties. She was not the least bit concerned that she had not made it to the potty (which really is only about 15 feet from her room). She stood up and stumbled towards me because she can get her panties down but not up yet. I scooped her up, before she stepped in her "masterwork".

I honestly had no idea how to respond to her. I wanted to laugh because there was poop on the floor. I wanted to scream because... well because there was poop on the floor. I did my very best to have no reaction at all. I explained that she did a very good job in trying to get the poop in the potty and that yes, it was a good thing that there was no poop in her panties. Then I grabbed some toilet paper, scooped up the poop and dropped it into the potty, and Erin followed me into the bathroom to say "bye poopy" as it went down the potty.
Now aren't you glad you don't have a two-year old at home?