Potty?

Since last Thursday, Our Birdie has been all about the potty. She asks to sit on it, and does the whole smash--except the smash--which to say she asks to go to the potty, toddles on in and situates the stool so she can climb up to the potty, lifts up the lid, waits for the potty seat to be placed on top, pulls her pants down, helps take her diaper off, helps herself to toilet paper, wipes herself, gets down, and flushes. What she does not do is what one is meant to do on the potty.

For a while now, Birdie has let us know when she's pooped and would thus like a new diaper. She quite likes all the business involved in the potty bit. Here she is Thursday night sporting her latest fashion forward design in which the diaper is donned over one's pants and another diaper underneath. Also, she's been having accidents (read: peeing on the floor) pretty routinely in between the time she's taken out of the bath tub and put into a new diaper. Then of course there was The Night Berenice Ate Clara's Poop when Birdie pooped on the floor. All of these things suggest that Birdie is eager to know what this whole potty thing is all about. On the other hand, she's only going on 23 months old! What?! The whole notion seems wacky given her age. We haven't noticed, either, if she can remain dry for any length of time.

So we called up our beloved Dr. Harrington, and ran the whole situation down for her. After reassuring Julie that she'd not given Clara a complex about pooping by putting Birdie in her crib after pooping on the floor so that Julie could clean it up, Dr. Harrington told Julie that we might consider giving it a go, so to speak, sometime soon--!!!!! Apparently, there are more than a few 23-month-old young ladies out there who decide to ditch the diapers. She suggested we start with putting Clara on the potty at regular times, and then take a weekend and try underwear. Dr. Harrington said if Birdie doesn't get it, to return to diapers and try again another time. She said we didn't have to be underwear-or-bust the way we were when we trained Joe because Clara is younger than Joe was when we trained him.

So we've been putting Birdie on the potty in the morning after she wakes up, before diaper changes, and before and after bath. So far, nothin' doin'. This makes sense to us since Joe was nothin' doin' on the potty until we put him in underwear and he peed in them and didn't like it, thus apparently looking in the sensation of having to go potty in his mind with something he did not want to give into unless on the potty.

We can hardly believe that Birdie might be capable of this cognitive leap, too, but she knows when she's pooped (which Joe never did and he's a potty rock star), Dr. Harrington has never steered us wrong, and it is true: Birdie doesn't tend to attempt what she cannot do. So we got some underwear and will keep you posted, Dear Readers, as to when we decide to try to cross this bridge.