Costume Changes

Have I mentioned that the Easter Bunny brought Peeper some "big girl panties?"

Have I mentioned that when she saw them, she said, "Up high. Don't like it," and put them back on the table?

Well, this scene was repeated three times today!

Here's how it happened: A while back, the routine (intentional or not) was for Peeper to have nakey time for a while after her bath each night. Unfortunately, more nights than not, that ended with me cleaning up pee from the carpet, so a couple of months ago, I started taking her diaper and jammies into the bathroom with us at bathtime, and declared that she couldn't leave the room until she had them on.

Recently, I've realized that most nights, while she's having her nakey time in the bathroom, she'll stop at some point, declare "Pee-pee on the potty!" go sit and pee. It took me a while to catch on that this wasn't a fluke, and that she really was noticing that she had to pee, stopping what she was doing, and going. Albeit, while playing in the same very tiny room with the potty.

So, I thought that she might be ready to go back to nakey time outside of the potty. After having a discussion about how "If you have to pee-pee, you need to tell me, and we'll go pee-pee in the potty. And, Mama will set the timer, and when it goes off, you can either sit on the potty long enough to read one book, or put your diaper back on," we gave it a try today.

I suggested that she have "panty time" rather than "nakey time," but she didn't like that idea.

However, when she wanted something to eat, I just couldn't bring myself to let her sit in her booster seat naked. I'm not sure if I'm protecting the seat from her or vice versa, but Shrike totally agreed, so that's the new rule. "No nakey in the booster."

I presented it in terms of "poopy germs" and suggested the panties again. When she went to check them out, we discovered that one pair has elephants! Bwoo elephants! Pink elephants! And on they went.

"Oh, that was sooooo easy! Did you see how easy that was to put them on? Much easier than a diaper!"

We had three nakey times today, and each time she ended up in her booster seat wearing the elephant panties. Each time, just as the timer was about to go off, she decided she wanted to take them off, and each time, she ended up back in a diaper, rather than going to the potty.

But, she did pee-pee in the potty before the first nakey time (I strongly suggested it before the other two, but it didn't happen. Those were both after baths - she showered with me in the afternoon, then had her regular bath later - so she'd probably peed in the tub.) and she didn't pee-pee in the floor or in her big girl panties, so I declare the experiment a rousing success!

After she got her diaper on, following the first nakey-time, she decided she'd like to go outside to play. The temperature was about perfect today, so I was happy to let her out in just a diaper, but old habits are hard to break, and she insisted on . . . .

She did eventually come to her senses. Sort of.

She kept taking the hat off, and then a few minutes later, she'd ask "Where's Peeper's hat? Head cold!" I asked her "Is your head really cold, or are you pretending?" "Tending!"

Then she aske for some chips . . . and some ham . . . and some cheese, and the next thing you know, we're having another picnic!

After her nap, we got all dressed (weather appropriately) for a trip to Target, but ended up spending another hour or so playing outside before we made it to the door.

Oh, and we picked up a little something while we were there, to help with the mud puddle situation.