Potty Party

As I've mentioned before, Peeper now wears panties at home during the daytime. She is usually mostly sort of compliant about going and trying when we remind her to, and when she tries she almost always goes (if she sits for more than a second), but she has yet to give us a heads-up that she has to go.

There were a couple of incidents a while back, where she said, "Hey Mama!" repeatedly, as I asked "What, Honey?" and then she peed, standing right there.

So, we've talked quite a bit about "What do you say when you feel the feeling that you have to go?"

"MAMA! PEE-PEE!"

And yet, no.

And lately, she's only hit and miss about letting us know that she's already gone.

So, in an effort to coerce encourage her to sound the pee-pee alarm before it's too late, we pulled out the Sesame Street potty chart that Santa Claus brought last Christmas. (Yes, we knew at the time that it was way too early for it.)

We've been holding off on charts and rewards and such because she's been so compliant about it all, so far, but we really don't know how to get her to make this leap.

(I suspect the answer is, as Dr. Sears would say, "The tincture of time," but we figure a dose of Elmo can't hurt.)

Anyway, this chart is pretty cool, in that there are five different columns in which you put stickers for five different parts of the process:

Elmo gives her stickers featuring Dorothy, his pet goldfish, for "Uh oh, I gotta go!"

Abby gives her pumpkin stickers for sitting cooperatively on the potty. (When we say, for as long as we say. Sort of.)

Cookie Monster gives her cookie stickers for actually pee-peeing (or pooping, but that's not happening).

Big Bird gives her stickers with his teddy bear, Radar, on them for wiping. (And flushing, according to the chart, but she's excused from that part because our flusher is too hard for her to operate. She makes up for it by flushing twenty times while I'm peeing at Target.)

Ernie gives her Rubber Ducky stickers for washing her hands.

As you can see here, if she sits, she usually pees, she's got no problem with wiping and washing, but she's yet to tell us that she has to go.

Every time she goes and we do the stickers, she asks for an Elmo sticker, and I tell her again what Elmo gives stickers for. Still hasn't happened.

On a related note - do you see how almost all the stickers are right in the little circles, and only one circle has been skipped. I think she has applied all but maybe the first set, all by herself.

I should get video of that process.

There are usually four stickers being handed out, and for each one, she holds it up to all the "wrong" columns and says "Is it along (does it belong) dere? Nope!" until she gets to the right one, and sticks it on.

This evening, after way too much "Well, if Peeper sits on the potty she'll fill her up Abby column, and we can get ice cream after dinner . . . . " we went to Baskin Robbins and had some ice cream to celebrate.

(We were heading out for Mexican food, and Baskin Robbins is across the parking lot from the restaurant, so it was going to be very convenient.)

Ice cream is evidently very serious business. I promise she really was having fun.

See?

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