Tuesday, August 26, 2008

It's a Potty!

This week my little girl got a little blue potty.
She loves her potty.
She talks about what she has to do on the potty.
She sits on her potty for long periods of time,
“book” she says, and she retrieves them,
one after the other, reading each aloud
in her own language, while sitting on the potty.

Then every day this week she stands up and pees on the floor.
Or worse. On the floor.

So I guess she’s got the general concept:
you can do this without a diaper.
You know when you have to do it.
It involves a potty.

She’s just not connected the dots.

She's 19 months old. I didn’t really expect we’d pick up this skill from one day to the next.
Though, now that I think about it, she’s figured out how to work the CD player from one day to the next.

And she figured out the telephone (and had a 20 minute conversation with her grandmother
without me touching the phone once).

And she’s figured out how lights work and how to take off her shoes, how to climb in and out of her high chair and booster seat, what Ima keeps in her purse, that credit cards and money are fun to have.

The potty is far less abstract. It doesn’t involve computer chips or electricity, or nebulous concepts of supply and demand, interest rates, globalization, inflation and government subsidies.

Maybe the potty is simply too beautiful and glamorous to be utilitarian?
Like a dress I recently bought at an extremely discounted price?

4 comments:

Miriam said...

I'm dealing with this, too. Yesterday they sat for three hours then C peed in her trainers and S peed on the patio. *shake* We will get through this!

Joyous Jewess said...

Yup, sounds very familiar here, too. And I find the challenge is how to discourage peeing/pooping on the floor without making them feel bad when they've done it. Good luck!

Commenter Abbi said...

I'm sure it may work for some kids, but it mystifies me as to why pple start potty training before age 2. I've done both my girls at around 2.5 and almost three and it took 3 weeks for them to get how to do both in the toilet. Until they get that cognitive click of where their stuff is supposed to go, i can't see the point of trying to train them.

Marcela Sulak said...

Miriam--triplets?!! Good luck.
Joyous--thanks.
abbi--I felt the same way about sleep training as you do about potty training. And at 17 months my child finally slept through the night without a fuss. I feel the same way about her feeding herself--but you know what? I give her a spoon, though it would be quicker and easier if I fed her. But the potty: the child she shares a nanny with has one, and she BEGS to sit on it. I was potty trained by 18 months. My nieces and nephews are all trained by 2. I'm not in a hurry, but this seems to be where we're heading. It clearly depends on the child.