8.19.2008

Potty Genius

Since yesterday afternoon, Iris has pooped in the potty three times and peed in it at least twice.

For those who might have trouble telling apart "the sisters with the I names", Iris is the baby. Who turned one two weeks ago.

Yesterday she climbed onto Ingrid's little potty with her pants on. Out of curiosity, I took her pants and diaper off and sat her back down. Then the phone rang. I was distracted for a few seconds, and when I came back to her the deed was done. The two times today were kind of the same thing. She went to the potty and fussed and fussed until I got her undressed and helped her sit down.

Her big sister—who, in all her three years plus three months, has landed every poop squarely in a diaper—looked on proudly, clapping. Good job, Iris! Hooray for you!

I will now begin shopping for my outfit for the Nobel banquet.

It's been a busy stretch, here. A was away for five days, we are embroiled in the last scramble of a day care decision, and I've been busy (pardon my blushing) reading a book about how to be spontaneous. And eating tomatoes. Maybe this week I'll get it together to write again.

9 comments:

  1. wow! very impressive! clearly brilliant. :)

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  2. She KNOWS where it GOES!

    Enjoy your tomatoes.

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  3. Smart girl, that's fantastic!

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  4. Oh, man, this is just how it started with O at 15 months - lots of interest (and a need of some diaper-rash airing anyway, and why not sit somewhere that you can catch the pee?), and there you go. It's been interesting at times, but I think I've washed/bought a lot less diapers overall by sitting them on the potty to pee before putting the diaper on. It's a good habit, if it's not stressing anyone out with big expectations.
    Don't leave your car windows open or I'll unload tomatoes when you're not looking. Good year for them, I think. And spontaneous? I do that on Thursdays at 2PM.

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  5. Hmm, maybe I should focus my attention on Boo! I'm not getting anywhere with his sister.

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  6. Guess I'll be getting a potty when I got shopping tonight! Wow, very impressive!!

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  7. My little one has been like that. Maybe try nudity with your older girl?

    Congrats anyway!

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  8. Wow! My 16 month old has started doing the sign for "potty", but we hadn't thought it would really be worth buying her a potty yet. Maybe we should.

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  9. Kids are so smart! Have you ever heard of EC? "Elimination communication," and it basically says that babies are born aware of their bodily functions and can learn to control them WAY younger than anyone on this continent believes. They practice this in China, among other places, and their kids are supposedly functionally trained by the time they're around a year old. We used to start way younger in this country, too, which makes sense - can you imagine a mama with eight kids hand-washing cloth diapers for two or three kids? I even found mention of sitting baby on the potty in my dad's baby book!

    We did this with our daughter starting when she was eight months old, and it was pretty amazing - by the time she was eleven months, we were catching almost all of her pees and some poos as well. As soon as she figured out that she could walk she decided that she'd rather do that than sit still ANYWHERE, geez mom, what are you THINKING?? which brought our little adventure to a quick end - but we had already saved loads on diapers. Now she's 19 months old and showing interest again, even telling us before she has to go and stuff... now I guess I have to decide what we want to do about that. :)

    Anyway, let me know if you'd like some links or anything - if you google EC or IPT ("infant potty training") you'll find some interesting reading. I think it's unusual and very cool that she did this spontaneously at eleven months!

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