[Our child would be the one who is naked.]

We have potty trained babies around these parts! It’s been almost three weeks and it’s a wonderful thing, I tell ya. One day she deigned to pee on a board in the backyard and after a day or two, we were able to coax her inside to try it in the toilet. Now she often uses indoor plumbing.

It’s not all fun and games though, there’s that little thing about how they may be able to pee in the right place at the right time but they don’t quite get the wiping part. In fact, it’s downright foolish to leave her in there with a roll of toilet paper anywhere in reach (or sight, since she’ll shriek if she can’t get at it). Usually she’ll unroll it all over the floor and rip it to shreds, poking little bits in one at a time. Once she dropped the entire roll into the bowl. Now, if she refuses to let me stand guard, I take it with me. There are often loud vocal protests but I am unmoved by such demonstrations.

About a week ago I noticed that her hairbrush (which often lives on the back of the tank) looked weird. It had bits of paper molded into the bristles in a strange way. Almost as if someone had, say, stuck it in the toilet bowl with a bunch of toilet paper (and whatever else…). No, I thought, she wouldn’t do that. But then I asked her what was up with the hairbrush and sure enough, she happily told me she cleaned the toilet with it. The brush is still sitting on the back of the tank; I’m just not sure what to do with it. She never let me use it on her hair anyway.

She’s a little weird about preschool peeing though; she’ll probably be one of those kids who can’t poop unless seated upon her own toilet. I hear it’s not uncommon. Last time I picked her up, she had evidently held it all day long and by the time I got there, she was visibly uncomfortable. We took her in and she went at last, a lot; she even wanted me to hold her hand as she sat there (this is unusual: at home, she usually boots me out—probably hoping I’ll forget to take the toilet paper with me when I go). I guess now we know that she can hold it. Next time she says she has to go when we are on the road, we’ll be all, nope, sorry kid, you will just have to hold it until we get to California.

[We got her this US map puzzle at a garage sale and it’s her favorite thing these days; we put it together at least once a day. She has most of the states memorized and usually can put about 3/4 of the thing together on her own—when she’s paying attention, that is.]

This entry was posted on Monday, August 2nd, 2010 at 10:18 pm and is filed under ronin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.