So I thought I would expound a little bit more on our adventures with potty training. Because in all of my initial excitement, I forgot to mention one thing: Pea won’t poop. In the potty. She will, however, poop everywhere else.

The big tip that I took from the book I mentioned yesterday, “Potty Training in a Day,” was the doll. Find a doll that pees. And then have your child train that doll to pee in the potty. So, I went off to my computer to hit up Amazon, because thus far, they have been the answer to all my questions. And I found an “interactive” doll who Pea could feed and care for and who would then wet her diaper. Her name is Kelly and I am proud to say that because of Pea’s tenacity, little Kelly is now potty trained. But it’s too bad for Kelly that she has fulfilled her duty in our home, because she has been relegated to the downstairs toy chest, where she now rests, completely naked and covered in purple pen marks.

But the training of the doll seemed to work wonders, because for an entire Thursday, we gave Kelly bottles of water and watched her pee into my daughter’s potty. It was so much fun, I tell you. And on Friday? Pea used her own potty and that was that. We really haven’t looked back. With the exception of the poop issue, I’m pretty pleased.

And what exactly is the poop issue? Apparently little Pea is not so in tune with the muscles that tell her it’s time to make a #2. And so by the time she gets her panties down and gets to the toilet, it is too late. And it hasn’t been such a huge issue, because she gets it. And we know her schedule. That kid runs on Swiss time. Every morning, just about 10:30, she has to do her secondary business. So while she’s just not getting to the potty in time, I’ve been pretty lucky with intercepting her before it’s a complete disaster. But we’re still working on it, and she knows that she’s supposed to make her poops into her potty.

Fast forward to this morning. After having Pea bring him one of her “doo-dahs” that she couldn’t attend to in time, my husband announced to her that when she decided it was time to make her poop in her own potty, she was going to get a very special present. And I’m not kidding when I tell you that she then spent the next 20 minutes in our guest bath, after waving me away and telling me that she “wanted to be alone,” squeezing out a #2. No joke. She’s never had to go in the afternoon, let alone the late afternoon, and yet she was determined to get that special present. Keep in mind that this was after an earlier and less successful attempt at fooling my husband into thinking she’d already pooped in the potty by simply flushing the toilet and coming out of the bathroom with a big grin, “Daddy, I made a doo-dah but you can’t see it because I flushed the toilet.” Ha. Nice try. I’ll give her points for creativity. But after a nice little chat about lying and how it’s just not a nice thing to do, she headed back in with a look of sheer determination on her little face. And… success! She did it!

And now? She gets to stay up late in the family room with my husband putting together her new Roller Coaster. Bribery? It may not be parenting-book approved, but it’s still the most effective means I know of to get my kid to jump through hoops.