House Broken!

What a process this has been! We heard so many suggestions...everything from "they'll figure it out on their own when they are ready" to "let them run around naked and they'll want to use the potty". Luckily, I have been blessed with a supreme amount of patience to persevere through the lengthy process!

Actually...truth is that I'm lucky that I have a beautiful wife with the patience to persevere through the process. Anyone who believed my previous statement probably shouldn't be reading this blog!We tried just about everything. We let her go naked. We forced her to sit on the potty. We bought pretty Dora undies so that she would (hopefully) want to keep them clean. There were times where none of that seemed to work. The amazing thing about kids is that everything just "clicks" all at once. Looking back on Julia's development, that's the way it has been. You try and try and try to get them to do something and just when your perseverance is shattered, out of the blue they do it!

Getting her to go pee-pee on the potty wasn't too tough. She got that consistently pretty fast...although we did have a stage where she was going for Mommy and school, but refused to go for Daddy. Given that I have her alone on weekday evenings, this was a frustrating time period.

Poops were the big challenge. I feel like she was scared to go. She would save them up and then just explode in a massive accident...rendering irreparable damages upon whatever cute cartoon character she had been wearing that day. Then one day it happened! It happened at school, but she did it!We had been promising Julia a "Special Treat" when she finally went poops for the first time. So I picked her up from school and they told me of her massive achievement and I took her to the toy store to pick out a toy. I was willing to deal with the "I want that...and that...and that..." because it was worth it! I was SO proud of her.

A couple weeks previous, she had been looking at a store flier that had Pillow Pets in it and she told her Mommy that she wanted the Blue Dolphin Pillow Pet. As we walk into the toy store, she spies a bin of these overpriced, under-supportive pillows and said to me, "Daddy, I want the Blue Dolphin Pillow Pet". After letting her hold it for a bit, I convinced her to not make such a rash decision and look at some of the other toys in the store.

We finally find the Dora aisle (yes...she has her own aisle) and Julia starts to vibrate. I was certain that we would be walking out with some sort of Dora play thing. I let her check everything out and play for a few minutes. Her excitement was amusing not only me, but several other store patrons who stopped to be entertained by her for a moment. Finally, I squatted down next to her and asked which toy she was going to choose.

I was really expecting her to ask for all of them and get upset when I made her choose. I'm pretty sure that's what two-year-olds do. But she knocked me on my heels when she said, in a rather matter of fact way, "Daddy, I want the Blue Dolphin Pillow Pet!"

The three of us left the store together that night, happy as can be..."Squeaky" the Blue Dolphin Pillow Pet, who had found a little girl who was going to love the heck out of him, Julia because she got Squeaky and me because my little princess could not have made me prouder that day!

-Andy