The Bear and the Potty Chair

One day last week I decided to show Caitie what it's like to change a diaper; her new bear came in handy for this task. She grabbed a diaper and proceeded to put it on her bear, but before doing so, she pulled out a baby wipe and started wiping the bear in prep for the diaper. I was busy snapping a couple of shots of her with my camera, so I didn't take notice right away of what she was doing, and then it dawned on me that she was getting the bear's fur all greasy from the baby wipe. Even though we now have a greasy bear, I was able to explain to her how babies need diapers and big girls use a potty chair. Which brings me to this story... I haven't pushed potty training on Caitie, especially since the 'toilet plunger incident'. Yes, we actually had one of those. I'm guessing it was a little over a year ago that Caitie came to the doorway of the downstairs guest bathroom to see what I was up to. She saw me bent over the toilet shoving the (bleep) plunger down the (bleepity, bleep, bleep) toilet trying to unstop it for what seemed like the thousandth time since we've lived here. With all the 'wooshing' and 'gushing' sounds the plunger was making, and seeing how red my face was, along with my arms pushing and pulling the plunger as hard as I could over and over again, her reaction was one of hysterics, she looked terrified, and that's putting it mildly. She has never been the same. She has a fear of toilets now, well, that one toilet, anyway. And since that's the only bathroom on the first floor, that's where her potty chair is; it sits right across form the (bleep) toilet. So, as I was saying, I haven't pushed potty training on her... yet. I do sometimes ask her if she wants to try using her potty chair, and she always has the same response, a resounding "no!". Well, just the other day she went calmly into the bathroom and sat on her potty chair, with no prompting from me. She pulled down her sweatpants and sat down. She still had her diaper on, but hey, that's progress to me! I was delighted, to say the least. She goes in there every so often now and either pulls up her dress, or pulls down her pants and sits on her potty chair, and sometimes says "pee", while pointing down to the potty chair. So cute. She even pretends to flush it when she's done. Priceless! Yes, this pleases me. :) Toilet paper is another story. She seems to think a whole role is needed in one sitting. ha If you're wondering about all the 'bleeps' above, we've had problems with the plumbing at this house ever since we moved in, which can be quite frustrating at times; not always with the red face and the bleepity, bleep, bleep, bleeps, but yes, quite frustrating. :/

p.s. the tag was removed from the bear's ear shortly after these pics were taken.