I'm proud of her, but I'm also proud of ME!

Since The Kid’s 2nd birthday last August, when she got 2(!!) potty chairs, we have been slooooooowly working our way towards potty training. At her 2 yo checkup (which I was a couple of months late on) her doctor asked if we had started potty training. If you count talking about the potty and sitting on the potty with all your clothes on as a start, then YES! That answer did not seem to be what he was going for, so being the fast thinker that I am, I told him that we were going to start getting SERIOUS about it after the holidays. And we did…for about 2 days. The Kid just wanted nothing to do with it and every time I would suggest that we sit on her potty she would scream and cry. And if I would suggest putting on a pull up instead of a diaper??? Oh, THE HUMANITY!!!!! How, on earth, could I suggest such a thing???? NO! She wanted a diaper and that was that! (And truth be told, I wasn’t ready for it either. I really love all the hugs and snuggles we would have after a nappy change.)

So I tried other tactics.

-New Little Mermaid underwear (Didn’t work)

-Sitting on the potty and singing our favorite songs (Fun, but didn’t work)

-“TK, did you know about ALL THE FUN THINGS YOU CAN DO ONCE YOU ARE POTTY TRAINED!!!!” (She merely rolled her eyes and went back to her novel)

-“TK, did you know that Gracie (her friend) goes on the potty? She’s such a big girl! Don’t you want to be a big girl like Gracie?” (Peer pressure had no effect – which is a GOOD thing, but still not helpful)

Honestly, all of that was crap. Because one afternoon, after we had taken a break from training for a few days, I said, “Hey TK, would you like to sit on the potty? I’ll give you an M&M if you do. And if you go, I’ll give you 2 M&M’s.” Her response? “Okay, mama.” And that….was pretty much that. I never realized that parenting was all about bribery. And chocolate... in a candy coated shell.