Olive Shoots: A fun Saturday

One thing I failed to mention in my post about our trip to Minnesota was that it convinced me that Clara needed to be toilet trained. On our flight home I took her to the lavatory (why is it only called that on planes?) for a very necessary diaper change that also involved a change of clothes. She felt very insecure on the tiny changing table that folded down and was very upset. Her consternation and protestations were so loud that one of the crew members knocked on the door to make sure that everything was okay. I decided that ready or not, it was time to potty train.

Because all of Clara’s big transitions have gone smoothly when we handled them cold-turkey, I figured that was the way to go. I stocked up on salty snacks, special beverages, homebound activities and made sure that we had meals in the freezer so that I could completely focus on the task at hand.

And focus we did. I set a timer. We had potty time every 30 minutes. I gave stickers, snacks, pep talks, and rewards for anything that sounded like dribble, even if it may have been incidental plumbing noises from our old toilets. I stayed up from 3-5 am with her on Sunday morning as she insisted that she wanted to go potty on the toilet and yet could not. The problem was not having accidents, the problem was that since she did not want to go in her panties, she did not want to go at all. She was stressed, I was stressed, and we gave up after day 3. Which was fine and good because four days after her third birthday she decided that she wanted to be potty trained and not even two weeks later she wasn’t having any accidents and was dry through the night. My mom would say it was pay-back, but you will have to get the details of that story from her!