Victory Farts

This is a post about potty training. If you're the squeamish sort, bye bye.

After a few tinkles months ago, the magic stopped. She was no longer interested, and would answer queries with a quick and final "No!" and walk away, to color in her Kai-Lan coloring book or make another little pink play-doh ball with matching play-doh crumbs.

During her visit with her maternal grandparents in DC, I heard the expected, "She's so smart! She knows her ABC's, can count to 20 in English and 10 in French* and she's only 2? She should be potty trained by now. So'n'so's kid was trained by 18 months! Why isn't she trained yet?"

Yeah, like I haven't tried. Sigh.

So they tried, the questions, the incentives, the promises. And her response?

"No!"

Then this week, she refused to let me change her diaper. I was kicked, screamed at, cried on, hit, and just generally abused. Not fun. Even so, she'd begin crying suddenly, with an "I peed my big girl bed!" or "I peed my booster chair!" (while wearing a diaper, still.) Since her dad finally had a weekend where he didn't have to really do much (this is exceedingly rare--he never takes any time off, but he needed it), it became his job to deal with diapers and the like. Rowan needed Mom to take some distance.

She didn't fight him, but still had no interest in the potty. However, she did have an interest in the Hello, Kitty! panties.

So he tried it. She wet through a couple of times, but he said it seemed to make sense to her. She insisted on the panties over her diaper at bed time.

Today? No requests, and many refusals. (All the panties were dirty.) But tonight before bed, she acquiesced. She sat on the potty, happy, with Mom in the room, for a good 5 minutes.

And?

She FARTED. At least 5 times.

I call that a win.












*That would be Un, deux, trois, quatre, six. Un, deux, trois, quatre, six. Un, deux, trois, quatre, six. Close enough.

Swimmer

We're home! Our week at the Outer Banks was a little too eventful for our taste (thanks to a wild horse that took a swat at Lucy), but we've survived and have made it back to PA in one piece (well, most of us, anyway). More photos will come, but I've got a lot of work to do to make that happen, so here's a teaser. I brought my camera, but one of the other women had a better one and was snap-happy, so I just let her go and read my book on the beach. She's given me free reign to download, so I will be doing that over the next few days, but since she took about 700 photos, it might take a while.

Rowan was a hoot to watch at the shore. She was terrified of the water, but determined to overcome her fear. The first day, she would go in kicking and screaming, clinging to us for dear life. As she'd come out of the pool or ocean, she'd turn around and go right back, scared but not willing to let that keep her from it. By the end, she was swimming alone in the pool (with water wings) and begging to go back into the ocean. The undertow and waves were strong, so walking was all she could do, and only with two adults holding on tight. I am so proud of her. It took me until I was in my thirties to get to the place she's at at age 2.

AND!!!

She had 3 dry nights! Woot! (I guess it all went in the pool.)