So last night was a banner night in potty training. No, she didn’t voluntarily run into the bathroom on her own and do her business promptly – would that she could! No, I ushered her in there as a pre-night night exercise. She sat down with no fuss and we began reading her current favorite book “Go, Dog, Go” by Dr. Seuss (also a personal favorite of mine growing up). She was sitting there flipping through the pages when I thought I heard a distinct “plop” from her potty. But since SHE didn’t say anything and kept on reading, I figured I imagined it. About sixty seconds later she peed and announced quite matter-of-factly, “I’m done.” When she stood up I saw that she had indeed done BOTH deeds in the potty!

I was thrilled, and after cleaning her up I gave her a big hug and kiss. Then we slapped a Finding Nemo tattoo on her left arm as her reward (she was thrilled). I had her call down to CootieDad and he came up and gave her lots of praise as well.

This morning we missed our short window of opportunity between waking up and having to go – she had already gone in her diaper by the time we got her to sit on the potty about 15 minutes after waking up. However, she sat there happily reading her book for about 10 minutes before I let her get up to get dressed.

Yesterday the whole family was in the car and at some point I said “That sucks!” and I heard CootieGirl in the back of the van pipe up and say, “Sucks!”

Oops. I’ll have to be careful about what I say around her now. She’s sucking up stuff like a sponge now and I don’t want to be the one that teaches her how to holler “Dumbass!” when someone cuts me off in traffic.

Last night I took CootieGirl to the Y for family pool time. I feared it would be really crowded, but fortunately it wasn’t too bad. CootieGirl had a great time floating in the pool and is getting good about kicking her legs in the water. I am definitely going to buy some floaties for her arms and a ring to help her float.

Sometimes she gets scared of the water, but last night she sat on the steps and did really well. She’d come down a step and eventually was sitting low enough in the water that her chin was level with the surface. She HATED when I did that in our neighbors’ pools. But I guess it’s different when it’s voluntary.

I plan on taking her to the pool again next weekend for more swimming and with any luck if I keep taking her on a regular basis then by next summer she’ll be rarin’ to go and will be able to actually SWIM.

We had potty-training success again this evening. Granted, it took about 40 minutes and a LOT of water to drink, but CootieGirl eventually did what she needed to do and “won” another tattoo. It kind of got smudged, but it’s still a tattoo and it was still applied because she used the potty. What she doesn’t know is that in about four days she’ll start getting Nemo, Dora and Blue’s Clues tattoos (I ordered some online).

…and the future is TATTOOS.

So we’ve not talked potty-training in a long time. That’s because we haven’t been doing much of it. Even mentioning the word “potty” would cause CootieGirl to cry and wail and shriek and throw herself on the floor in protest.

However, taking the advice of Trixie’s dad, last night we moved up from sticker incentives to TATTOCootieGirlincentives.

CootieGirl had a LOT of water to drink last night so as I was putting her to bed I knew she probably had to go. “Hey CootieGirl,” I said in my best excited voice, “let’s try and use the potty!”

“NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

“But hey, CootieGirl, look – if you use the potty then look what you can get? A tattoo!” I wave a Berenstain Bears tattoo in front of her eyes, which grow wide with anticipation. She all but SKIPPED to the bathroom.

But getting her to stay on the potty was another story – she kept getting up, running out of the bathroom, hiding behind the rocking chair in our room, and generally trying to get out of actually SITTING on the potty.

“CootieGirl, you don’t get the tattoo unless you actually sit and go pee-pee in the potty, okay?”

She came back into the bathroom and sat down, but made sounds of protest. I distracted her by helping her play with the various rubber ducks we have around the bathroom, as well as trying to get her to sing or talk to me. All of a sudden I heard the steady stream of success.

“YAY!” I said, clapping my hands. She was smiling at me with a surprised look on her face, but I continued to praise her. When she was done and cleaned up I promptly handed her the tattoo. “Look what you get! That’s awesome CootieGirl!”

“Awesome!” she cried, running in to our room to have a new diaper put on. Once dressed for bed I help her apply the tattoo to her left leg, and then we went downstairs so we could show CootieDad. He was suitably excited for her and after a good night kiss she went down to bed for the night.

This morning I feared we’d have problems getting her to sit, but she didn’t protest too much as CootieDad led her into the bathroom to go. However, she had already gone in her diaper so it was a futile exercise, but at least she didn’t protest.

Tonight I shall ply her with a lot of water again and see if we can get her to use the potty again. I know the key is to get her to KNOW ON HER OWN when she has to go potty, but hey – getting her to SIT on it is a success in my eyes at this point.

So this past weekend we had people over for poker, and at some point I put CootieGirl and CootieBoy down for an afternoon nap. However, CootieGirl had no desire to sleep and put the kibosh on CootieBoy getting any sleep as well. She pulled out all her toys and began playing, but also talked and sang and generally entertained CootieBoy, who stood in his crib watching her.

We had the monitor on in the living room so that we could hear what was going on up there, and they were having a grand old time while we played poker just below them.

At some point we were in mid-hand and I heard CootieGirl on the monitor. “CootieBoy! CootieBoy! I love you, CootieBoy!” I made my heart sing, so it did.

Yesterday I was playing with CootieGirl and CootieBoy in their room. CootieBoy was happily going through the toy bins, and I laid on the floor while CootieGirl played at taking a nap on her bed. She saw me laying on the floor and grabbed her pillow and blankets and came over to me.

“No, HERE, Mama,” she said, thrusting a pillow under my head. She then shook out a blanket over me before getting on the floor and rest her head next to mine. She looked me in the eye then leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. “Night, night, Mama,” she whispered, kissing me again.

We laid there for all of five seconds when CootieBoy suddenly threw a hard ball and hit CootieGirl square on the head. Once I dried her tears and put CootieBoy in the crib with some toys (so as not to cause further physical pain) CootieGirl demanded that I lie down on the floor again.

Tired as I was I happily obliged. Once again the laid a couple blankets over me and said, “Night night, Mama.” With that she went over to the door and turned. “I love you!” she said, blowing me a kiss, and with a gentle “Night night!” she left the room and shut the door behind her.

What made it so funny is that it was a complete mimic of how I put her to bed each night. I get her in bed, head on pillow, put two blankets over her, kiss her and tell her I love her, go to the door, turn and blow a kiss, say “Night night” and close the door. Every nuance of our routine was perfectly capture in that moment.

So this weekend I began teaching CootieGirl to read. Back in 2003 when I was preggers CootieDad brought home a book that outlined a plan to teach your child to read starting at nine months of age, but I never did anything about it. This weekend I realized that CootieGirl’s word flashcards would be useful, and so I grabbed about a dozen cards and sat down with CootieGirl on Saturday morning.

I showed her one card and said, “This says ‘off’”

“Off!” she shouted, staring at the card.

“This says, ‘try’.”

“Try!”

“This says ‘pretty’.”

“ME!!!!”

I laughed out loud. All the time I ask CootieGirl, “Who’s my pretty girl?” and she preens and says, “Me!”

A few more times on Saturday, Sunday and Monday we went through the cards – and each and every time I said, “This says ‘pretty’,” she would grin and point to herself as she repeated the word.

As for the reading part, I’m not following the plan strictly because it’s geared more for people who are home all day (it requires you go through four sets of five words about twice a day EACH (a total of eight “sessions”). I’ve made it one set of 12 words twice a day total. CootieGirl loved it over the weekend and never got bored with it, so we’ll keep it up. I didn’t do it this morning but I’ll do it tonight and also set aside the 90 seconds required in the morning to do the flash cards.