Potty training: who's the boss?

I don't know if this situation comes up too much among mothers... my daughter is ready to potty train and I am not ready for that to happen.

I love our Bum Genius cloth diapers and I'm not ready to sell them.  I wrote a few posts on the joys of using them, that you can read here.

I'm not ready to trip over the potty chair in our small bathroom.

I'm not ready to run to the bathroom umpteen times a day and kneel on the cold, tile floor while waiting for the magic to happen.

I planned to start training in the summer... Little Lady could wear sun dresses and it would be warm.  There would be no socks to dribble pee onto.  Maybe I would even try the pants-free training.  I would be done teaching for the summer so she could have my attention every day and maybe, just maybe, we could train her "right" when we didn't do so hot with her poor big brother.

But these children, you know, have different plans.

We've had the potty in our second (even smaller) bathroom since Christmas, upon the insistence of Mini Me who spied it in the closet and really, really, really wanted his sister to sit on it.  She peed in the potty a handful of random times the first few months of the year, which we cheered on with whoops and hollers.  We weren't going to press it, but would put her on the potty every once in a while.  Almost every time she did pee.  Yay!

A couple weeks ago she starting asking me to go potty.  "Pah-ey?"  So we would run to the bathroom and sure as the sun rises, she would pee.  We started wondering what was going on.  We started putting her on the potty a little more regularly - before and after bed, after meals, before leaving the house.... and every time we did, she was dry and would pee in the potty.  Was she really ready?  It sure seemed like it.

I resigned myself to the realization that I am not the boss of her and her potty needs.  I went out and bought underwear (though I should have had her use Mini Me's old underwear... little girl underwear is kind-of silly and I miss that thick elastic waistband the boys' has!).

We are seven days into underwear and have had only one pee accident (at the library, no less!).  We take her potty every couple of hours and she pees almost every time.  What's more, she does not tarry on the potty.  She does her business and declares, "Done!" and then she's off.  Bowel movement accidents in the underwear are another story, but we figure, we already wash cloth diapers so what's washing an extra load of underwear?

And so, my smart little 21 month old has decided to potty train herself.  I feel lazy that I've done nothing special to "teach" her.  I feel proud at her progress.   And I feel very much like a mama to young children when I think about how many times a day I say "pee" and "poop".  Gotta love potty training!