Potty Prize

Walking through Target the other day, Alice fell in love with this toddler Tiana doll.  For those of you "out of the know" Tiana is the black Disney princess.  She's from New Orleans and it's a kind of odd movie (The Princess and the Frog).  But, she just captured Alice's eye at the store.  Alice said she wanted her and I thought well maybe if she wants her I can get something out of this.  The something I've been wanting so bad is potty training success.  I asked her if she was sure that was her favorite princess and she told me, "Yes, Mommy, she is the most beautiful."  So, we brought Tiana home.  I wanted to have Alice be accident free for a month or something.  Ben thought we should make a more attainable goal so that she could be successful.  He suggested three consecutive days.  So we went with that.  Starting the following day, we made a chart.  Three Sesame Street stickers were applied the next three days.  At the end of day 3, we opened the package.  Alice was ecstatic.  We call Tiana the "zero accidents doll".  Alice reminds us, "Zero means none, right Mommy?"  She plays with Tiana for about a half hour and then says, "Mommy, is she brown?  Why is she brown?"  I had to laugh.  She'd been looking at her for days, longing for her, and had never connected with the fact that she was a different color than herself until she held her.  So we had a short conversation about people are all colors, just like we have different eye and hair color.  I left it at that.  A little later Alice said, "She's so beautiful, Mommy.  I want to look just like her."  This time I tried to only laugh inside, because, honey, that's just not gonna happen.  I told her she was just as beautiful as a princess already.  It's been more than a week since we got Tiana and Alice is still having zero accidents every day.  She will sometimes protest when we ask her to go the bathroom and she wants to play, but she does go and often goes on her own.  It's a big step, but it's been a long journey.

Cartoons by Clyde and other Poopy Stuff

Clyde and Daddy were drawing cartoons the day after Jill and her dogs visited. Jill's golden retrievers, Reggie and Lola, had rolled all over in cow poop (complimentary fecal masks are always provided here)... Clyde got pretty excited about the poop theme in his cartoons. He asked me to help draw the dog and dictated the captions to me. Little boys always find poop so fascinating!

Clyde is at Mumsy Camp this week. My mom has all kinds of activities planned and when I stopped by yesterday to gather huckleberries Clyde seemed to be having a great time. Alice really wanted to go too, but we told her that only kids who use the potty can go to Camp. We're having quite an ordeal with potty training because she's totally and utterly afraid of pooping, whether in her diaper or in the toilet. We know it will pass, but it's tough to watch your child suffer so much.