The call....

Right after I posted my last blog today the phone rang. The number displayed on the phone was one I had been expecting to see for the past 3 months. One I had expected to get every Tuesday and Thursday morning since my daughter K had started pre-school in August. The call informing me that I needed to come & get her because she had a BM in her pull-up (They'll handle the liquids there, but no solids please!).

The really strange thing was that I was really not expecting to get the call today. I mean, she had just won a pair of red shiny shoes for her accomplishment of 2 days of "relative" dryness (I will admit here that I have lowered my standards a bit since I trained my son 3 years ago. My poor boy had to jump through much more difficult hurdles on his quest for potty training prizes). We had used these red shoes as a carrot for months ever since she expressed a desire for a pair after seeing her favorite cartoon character Lola wearing them. Like her mother, K often has cravings for new shoes.

Don't get me wrong, I knew that there would be many setbacks along the way & I'm not disappointed in K. I had just thought she had finally made the decision that she was done with pull-ups. One thing you should know about K. is that while she may be very sweet, she is also a very stubborn, very independent 3 year old girl. None of the parental (tricks) inticements, that worked with my son, work with K. She refuses to be bribed, cajoled or reasoned with. If she doesn't want to do something she won't do it. Not even dangling her favorite food will get her to do our bidding:

(She is her mother's daughter)

This is especially true if it is something that she senses is important to her Dad or I. While I think this trait may come in handy later when she deals with peer pressure, it is not so convenient now, as we try to (bribe) intice her to do what we would like her to do.

So, we'll keep trying. I will continue to encourage her, while trying to seem like it really doesn't matter to me if she goes in the potty or not (her doctor thinks this will help). I will continue to be supportive of her decision to go or not go on the potty & most importantly I will remember that this too shall pass. Before I know it, she'll be facing much larger issues than a dirty pull-up. So, I'll revel in these small hurdles & look at them for what they are - very tiny bumps on the road of life.

You know what? I just realized I still have a dirty diaper in the back of my van left from the pick-up at school today. Better go retrieve it before my van is declared a Bio-Hazard zone!