potty turnaround

After a major and prolonged setback, we finally appear to be having a much-needed turnaround with Rachel where potty training is concerned.

A few weeks ago, it looked like Rachel finally had achieved potty-training Shangrila. She either let us know she had urgent business to take care of, or she simply took the initiative on her own and took care of all the crap by herself. This period lasted, as I recall, about two days.

Without warning, Rachel suddenly was beset with persistent, well, not diarrhea, but a guano-awful condition that used up two or three pairs of training pants a day. It was a dirty business, and it set her back some ways where the business end of a diaper is.

Then, over the past week, even after she got back into the regular movement of things, it was as though she wanted to tell us, "You're in for an ordeal still." We went through a stream of outfits in record time as she abandoned all pretense of knowing how to use the potty. She even wet herself twice at night, something she hasn't done in close to a year. It really stank. You could say it was a major pisser.

After washing our hands of the whole mess, Natasha and I scratched our heads and started talking about what the trouble was. Our diagnosis: It's an attention thing, and it's a control thing. Natasha's been busy with work and taxes, I've been trying to get some stuff done here at home, and over the last weekend in particular, Evangeline was seizing every opportunity she could to play chess.

So today we resolved not to say a word of reproof if Rachel had an accident, to lavish praise on her every time she went to the potty, and to let her put a sticker on a fresh, clean potty chart every time she uses the potty instead of having an accident.

I thought it would take at least a few days, but probably a week to see progress. Instead, this entire day has been accident-free. There has been no need to offer incentives like a piece of candy or a cookie. (Yesterday I was ready to promise to bake her a freaking cake if she would just use the potty.) The thrill of putting a sticker on a piece of paper that hangs on the refrigerator has been all that she has needed. She's even leaked the information twice, with no prompting, that she needed to go.

Whew. Thank God.

In an odd wrinkle on the situation, she wants to give her potty chart to her buddy Sammy. I can only imagine what a 3-year-old expects her friend to do with someone else's potty chart. It sounds like a pretty crappy gift, to me.