That’s what I hear echoing down the hall every couple hours.
That’s right. We’re back into potty training. I thought I’d give it one last go before the weather got nice, and I couldn’t bear to be locked in the house for weeks on end. We started three weeks ago. I thought if I could get her trained in two weeks, before I left for Texas, we would be ready to go for summer.
The first two and a half days were pretty bad. Olivia didn’t seem to get exactly what she was supposed to do. Somewhere on the third day, she finally went “pee-pee in the potty.” (My potty language is pretty rudimentary these days) After that it was probably another week where she would go potty if I asked her to, but if she needed to go, and I didn’t happen to ask, she wouldn’t volunteer the information. We were about 50/50 in our success/failure.
Finally, a day or two before I left, she started going to the potty on her own. She still wouldn’t tell me, but she would disappear into the bathroom, and minutes later I would hear the chant victorious: “I DID IT MOMMY! I GET A TREAT!” — (I’ve been scrambling for treats. It seems what ever potty treat I buy for the girl, her daddy eats. He thinks he should get a treat for all the years he’s been going potty!)
Then yesterday, the biggest break through of all. In all this time, Olivia has never gone “pooh-pooh” in the potty. She only poops once a day usually, so if I didn’t catch her at just the right moment, and she had an accident, we’d have to wait until the next day. Without going into too much detail on the scheduling of my daughters bowel movements, let’s just say we have been pathetic in getting her poop and the potty together.
Then yesterday she had once again disappeared. I hear movement in the bathroom, but it’s been longer than previous visits. I go in, suspicious, and find that she’s pulled the toilet brush out from the cabinet. In the midst of my scolding, I look over to see a long brown poop sitting in beautiful contrast to her lime green toilet.
“HURRAY!” I shout, “You Did It!” I grab the phone. We call daddy. “Heaven must be smiling on us” he says, with a hint of relieved exhaustion in his voice. We look to find the best treat ever. There are none to be had. Daddy has eaten them all. We shout “Hurray!” some more and break out the fruit snacks.
I know we still have a ways to go. But it seems we’ve reached the summit.