Potty Time

We began potty training in earnest a couple weeks after Molly turned 2. By the week before Christmas, she would go days without any kind of daytime accident (night/naptime doesn't count :-p). We could go in public in cloth big girls, potty while out, and arrive home dry and use the potty. I was thrilled, as I'd wanted to have her mostly trained before the new baby came.

Then came the week of Christmas... By the time everyone left, she was refusing to use the potty at all. Since then, we've been clawing our way back, flush by flush, to where we were before the Great Potty Backslide of 09. The latest positive development is Molly's newfound ability to get on and off the big potty by herself. For now, the novelty of this is helping her attitude and motivation a LOT.

When Molly potties, she may ask for a candy (I don't offer it). The candy of choice one mini m&m. She doesn't just want the candy though- she wants Minnie Mouse or Hopkins to give it to her. She got a Minnie Mouse pez dispenser for Christmas. We quickly ran out of pez (and man, is that stuff impossible to find at the store), but mini m&ms are small enough to fit. Molly will ask for "Candy from Minnie Mouse's neck". The first time she said that, I just about died. "Hopkins" is a frog picture frame that greatly resembles the beloved frog character from Signing Time. She asks for "Candy from Hopkin's tummy". This means that I must place the single m&m on the stomach part of the picture frame and hold it for her like a waiter with a platter.

I know she will hate me for this when she is 13, but I can't help myself. Here are some things Molly has said after observing the result of a successful poop in the potty:

4) "It's kinda like a finger"

3) "Is it a potato?"

2) (when two rested at a right angle) "Look! It's a letter T!"

and my favorite:

1) (seeing several stacked together...) "Aww... it's a family!"