Pottypalooza 2.0

You've met "Tiger" the tiger, "Puppy" the puppy, and "Bear" the bear. Now meet the newest member of the family:

"Baby"

That's right, friends, we are once again taking the potty business by the proverbial horns. This time around stickers don't have the same spark that they once did, so we moved to Bravo plan: toy on the fridge that she can only play with when she has successfully used the potty at home.

This all started a few weeks ago. They were potty training two other kids and I buckled under the pressure to let them all do it at once because I remembered how much she hated being away from her friends the last time we did this. This way her friends would be going with her to the potty, all learning at the same time. It seemed like a great idea at the time.

So we jumped in, and then I got the call that we needed to fly home the next day. The Hater and I decided to persevere and we moved to disposable trainers and flew the friendly skies to Tennessee, where she proceeded to pee in just about everybody's toilet that we know.

She even peed on the airplane between flights. She was very excited to make "blue pee pee" and told everybody about it when we left the tiny stall which was not created with potty training in mind.

I wasn't stalwart about potty training for the week we were home, but we certainly made a valiant effort. I figured she certainly wasn't any worse by the time we got back to OK, and this week at day care she's done remarkably well. The last two days she's had at least 4 pee successes each day and one poop success. She's still not telling them when she needs to go, but we're all hopeful that she'll pick up on that in the next few weeks.

Home training isn't going as well, despite "Baby" on the fridge. At first she just screamed that she wanted "Baby" and it was hard to explain to her that she could only have it as a reward. But now I think she understands. She wants to come home and pee so we can get "Baby" down.

"Baby", of course, has many sundries. She has a little plastic toilet that makes a flushing sound when you push down on the little pink button in the front. She has two outfits (including her own "big girl panties", which are quickly removed. She has a blanket (infant wash cloth with duckies on it), and from the $ store she has the little orange juice bottle that pretends to empty when you tip it and a blue plastic carrying pouch for everything to fit nicely inside. It is quite fun and good for 10-15 minutes of solo play when she gets it.

More on this as we progress. Take a moment to be thankful for the people who helped to train you to use the potty and whatever bribery it took to get you there.