To Pee or Not To Pee

When I was growing up my mother used to tell people this one thing so many times it stuck in my head like a bad song...."Our Debbie learned to read at four years old and Vallie, she was toilet-trained at four!" Very amusing. I earned the moniker of 'wild-child' and often wondered if I'd been raised by monkeys rather than the attentive, personable and eager woman who claimed the honor.

Screech to decades later: As Sweetpea is circling around the potty I am acutely aware that I may be under some pressure to prove that I am not a Monkey and my daughter will learn to pee in the pot before she reads The Bobsey Twins. To that end our two-year old has progressed from the early days when she would stare at me in surprise when liquid poured mysteriously down her legs, to weeks later looking down at the general vicinity just as something is about to happen and then racing helter-skelter to the potty yelling "pee-pee!!!" at the top of her lungs. It's all very rewarding, I must say.

One thing parents don't warn you about is that there is a very, very long time between that first inkling of awareness to actually being "potty-trained". Being potty trained means you can take vacations on cruise ships and park your little one in the kiddie program (no diapers, please!). Or forever release yourself from the torture of carrying around that fashionable-as-it-may-be black-hole called the diaper bag. The one filled with any number of feeding, clothing, and changing implements that you have to keep close to you at all times with travelling with baby. It goes with you no matter what the circumstance or how far you have to shlep it (and the child) down the potted path to grandma's house, or to a baseball game, or walks in the park, or....well you get the picture. From here to there takes quite a while and the process is, shall we say, hit or miss.

We're not there yet, but to her credit, Sweetpea is well on her way. Mind you, it has been an interesting adventure. For instance, I discovered that she is much more likely to change her ways if she goes without a diaper. So in the mornings she runs around naked from the waist down doing what kids do. This requires some supervision: "Don't sit on your dolly, sweetie!" and "I know it itches but please don't scratch there with the hairbrush!" punctuated by periodic thumping sounds as she runs for the potty to do her business.

This morning she was playing in her room and I got complacent and let her out of my sight for a few minutes. All was quiet. Too quiet. My first clue was when our dog Daisy, operating on a sixth sense that all dogs have for certain aromas, got up and headed down the hall. Then I heard Sweetpea saying something like, "Uh, oh." I arrived just in time to see my lovely daughter standing there trying to keep Daisy from wolfing down the last of the poop she'd "deposited" on the floor. Best I can tell she was standing in front of the mirror when the urge came and I guess she thought she'd see what was going to happen. And here I was about to eat breakfast.....

Sweetpea was distraught and burst into tears. I mean, she'd never actually witnessed something coming out of THAT end. She'd been in diaper-denial. Not any more.

"Stinky!" she said with a certain amount of disgust as we washed our hands and ignored Daisy who slunk off somewhere. Then she sat on the potty for twenty minutes and wouldn't get off until I bribed her with a pair of pull-ups and a horsey ride.

All in all, I'd say it's going pretty well....