Potty Time

We have started really working on potty training with Miss Corinne. She had been extremely resistant to the idea all year, and there never seemed like a good time with school starting and so many changes in her routine. She just didn't seem ready, sometimes actually preferring to stay in her poopoo diaper and getting extremely agitated when the potty was mentioned. Also previous attempts on our part had been a little bit on the half-assed side (like putting her in underpants and then forgetting to remind her to use the potty for, oh, several hours). But faced with the prospect of having two kids in diapers in another month, we decided it was time to get serious. While there are definite advantages to not having to worry about your kid's bodily functions when out and about, it was just getting too expensive, and she's already in the largest size of Pampers.

So for Christmas Corinne got a special timer that you can set for any amount of time. It looks like the kind they use for presidential debates, where it goes from green to yellow to red (works great for Time Outs and to curb stalling tactics, as well. I highly recommend it). We set it for twenty minute intervals and whenever it went off we asked her if she needed to use the potty. At first we gave her candy just for sitting on the potty, so strong was her aversion to it. Then she just got candy for going. Being the smart cookie that she is, she quickly figured out that she could do one teaspoon of peepee every ten minutes or so and spend the day in a sugar induced Utopia, so we created the Potty Chart. Every peepee equals a sticker and three stickers earn her candy. Poopoo gets you automatic candy. (Note my delightful poopoo drawings on the right hand side of the chart)We've had a lot of luck with this system in the peepee department. She has started holding it for long periods of time and will ask to use the potty even if she is wearing a pull-up. We've only done one poopoo in the potty, which was so huge in size and accomplishment that I almost took a picture of it (it was easily as big as our TV remote), but decided that that was really too much information for most people (as if this blog post isn't TMI already). She tends to poopoo at night, and we can't seem to convince her to wake us up when she has to go. She has had only had one accident, and that was because she got up from the potty mid-pee to see what was happening on the television (yes, our potty is in our living room. What of it? You're just jealous) We've filled up one chart already, and I'm thinking when I make the next one that four peepees will equal candy, and then five, until we wean her off of the candy altogether. I'm sure we will have some regression when Apple comes, but at least we're barely using diapers at this point and for the next month I will enjoy it immensely. Next up: weaning off of the beloved Boobah (pacifier).

(Like father, like daughter.)