Paper? Plastic? COOKIE MONSTER!

Potty training has been going on in our home for some time. We started early, Violet was 16 months old when her Canadian great grandmother bought her a musical, magical princess potty chair. We did use it successfully a few times in those early days, until she became a little freaked out by even the sight of the chair and eventually unraveled the mystery of the music chiming in when she peed. She discovered the sensor, which could be seen as a little red light above the removable bowl, was willing to oblige her need for princess-y and royal celebratory music simply by waving her hand around in front of the light thus placing her hand perilously close to the waste she had deposited into the 'royal potty.' The allure was never again the same and the training idea was put off until a more reasonable time.

Violet began telling us each time she needed a diaper change so I thought it was totally time to train and I'd be lucky enough to have one of those rare babies who was using the potty 100% of the time before the age of two. Really what happened was her bossiness developed to a more mature level and demands increased all around, not the desire to free me of changing diapers. Around this time we relocated and decided that changing homes was enough stimulus and emotional strain for our toddler and forgot the idea again. After everything was settled from the move and her second birthday passed she was showing signs of interest in being " a big girl" so out came the seat... and that was June. Most days now she uses the potty all the time while we are in the house and needs only a single pull up for long outings and one for bed. Some days are horrible, when the siren song of Little Bear is too much for her to break free from for the brief 6 step jopurney to the bathroom in order to NOT pee on her little foam couch, and on those occasions it takes up to two soakings. The cover is washable... and ugly. It's covered in blotchy bright patterns of primary colors with a giant picture of that super dork, Calliou. So, no harm done when it's soiled as I look forward to the day when I can declare the couch unusable and toss it in the bin. This week the training pants, the couch and the toddler are staying dry. I stumbled onto a working system to prevent accidents! We ran out of both clean training pants and diapers this week... so much laundry during this process... and Violet had to wear one of her very special Sesame Street panties. Knowing that these underwear are not at all absorbant and I would surely be cleaning pee off something if an accident occured I asked her to please not get them wet as I put them on her and quickly added "Cookie Monster will not like it if you pee on him." She looked up at me a little concerned and agreed to stay dry.

Here we are a couple days later with the blue furry cookie loving image and that of his cohorts Elmo and Zoe remaining totally dry. I can't believe something this simple is working this well.