britches

i've been off the blog scene for several days and for good reason!

we took advantage of the president's day holiday to start potty training. a friend told me about the "potty boot camp" and it was available on kindle e-reader. so, i bought it. the author basically lumped several "techniques" into one and published a book about what worked for her. and now schmucky parents like us all over the US are hanging on her every word.

but let me tell you, it was worth the $6. granted, we have a pretty flippin' smart kid so that helps. i kid, i kid. but in over a week, she's had only 2 days where she was sent home from school in a different outfit (and neither were her fault!). ...

the concept is that you pump your child full of liquids then take them to the bathroom every 10 minutes. the idea is that by the end of that evening, the child will self initiate because they're so sick of the parent asking them "do you need to go..." (insert endearing word for "urinate"...which i'm told isn't a natural word for a 2.5 year old to use even though it's my term of choice). by sunday, she was telling us she needed to "go". it helped that for every 10 minutes she was dry she got an m&m. and when she did go to the potty, she got a prize...like a disney plush toy. on sunday,  i had the genius idea to let her see who all in the disney gang was waiting for her and when she saw goofy, she really wanted him. and when she found out what she needed to do to get him, she was on it! we also told her that when she told us she needed to potty - or went by herself - and actually did something we would take her to the disney store (or disneyland as she calls it) and she could pick out whatever she wanted.

over the past week, we've had several instances of successful self-initiation so we took her to the disney store. to say she was excited is an understatement. we reminded her that she could get whatever she wanted. i show her some disney princess dress up kits which i was sure would be a ticket item. nope. michael showed her some princess figurine play sets. no dice. mickey mouse cash register complete with play money, scanner, microphone, basket, a few cartons of milk, scale. uh. no thanks. dress up outfits, minnie mouse marker/color pencil sets, princess dolls. no, no and no. so i remind her again "you can have whatever you want!". all she wanted to do was sit at the table and color while watching sleeping beauty on the big screen. she just loved being in the store (she really thinks is like the disneyland trip we took last june)! we ended up talking her into a big mickey mouse, a small mickey & small minnie (to match her other clubhouse friends she got as potty training prizes & a $2.50 minnie mouse bag). pretty funny.

she thinks she hit the jackpot. but trust me, the fact that we're not shovelling out ridiculous dollars to huggies anymore is proof that we've hit the jackpot.