It's a Potty, it's a Potty-Potty, It's a Potty-Potty Weekend!

Since I am sure everyone's dying to read about peepee and poopoo, I've been trying to get in front of the computer long enough to write something for several days, but have not been able to until now (and even now, SNG is saying "put on a coat and come out here and bring mittens for e-baby because I need to look at the wires under the house and someone needs to throw the ball for DOTi." So this minute is technically stolen.).

After long consideration, I wouldn't attribute difficulties we've been having to my child being just plain stubborn. That's really not an accurate characterization of her. She definintely has her own mind, and wants things done her way, but she is also surprisingly rational, so usually she'll respond to reason. No, I think any trouble we've had has been related to two things about e-baby. 1- she is a kid who HATES stopping what she's doing to do something different. No matter what she's doing right now, it is, in her mind, the ONLY thing she wants to do. Nothing else can compete (except, as I've mentioned, books-- usually). 2- she is feeling a new sense of power and control with the big-girl underwear, and likes the fact that she can hold it for a long time in spite of my constantly asking "do you need to go potty?". She'll tell me "No, I just hold it a little longer" and then, eventually, she gets a panicky look and says "I need go peepee RIGHT NOW!" and runs to the bathroom.

We haven't had any pee accidents since Monday, and even then there was only one. She takes her naps in underwear and does fine. I have her wear a diaper at night, because I am the laziest mommy on earth and don't want to set a peepee alarm at 2am and I'm not sure she can manage 8-10 hours of bladder control. Poop is another story altogether, but I'll get to that. Yesterday evening we went to a neighbor's house for an early New Year's eve party, and e-baby used their potty twice (both times against her initial wishes, but she was clearly in discomfort trying to hold it so she could play with the other kids). She is always very proud of herself when she does pee on the pot, even when it means she's had to stop something fun.

But the poop. This paragraph is nasty, so if you're of a delicate sensibility, please skip to the next one right now. She had held her poop for 2 days-- making lots of underleg-music ("It's OK, mommy- I just pooted. It's not a poop. I don't need go poop right now" Oh yeah I believe THAT. Sure. Have I mentioned that my kid can lie like a bearskin rug on a Palin bedroom floor?)-- when she couldn't help herself and pooped a big blob of lead bearings in her underwear at the party. I decided to put my formal education to work, however, and told her that we'd put it into the toilet, so she could see, and then she could sit on the potty to try and poop more on top to make a poop tower (I swear, the thing went "Clink!" when it hit porcelain. I TOLD you this was nasty, it's your own fault for reading it). She was interested in that opportunity, and gave it the old school try. No more poop, but it seemed to mark a turning point.

Today she has been surprisingly interested in going pee, and she even went pee at a public restroom (GASP! ARG!) when she is ordinarily terrified of public restrooms with their noisy, automatic-sensor toilet flushers. I was about as icked out as I could be because, yes, kids ALWAYS grasp the sides of the toilet seat ring. ACK! YUCK! No amount of hand washing sets my mind at ease. Me and Howard Hughes just need our graves side-by-side. Then, when we got home, she pooped in the toilet. For real. On purpose.

So, just when it seemed like she'd never get it, everything just fell into place.

I am sure there will be plenty of setbacks, but we appear to be on the downhill side of the underwear expedition amd for that I'm so glad. Next week it'll be the daycare's problem for 8 hours a day. They are way better at this than I am anyhow.

Now, do you need to go to the potty? Are you sure?