I Did a Tinkle!

Tonight, Claire took her first big step away from diapers.

This was the first time she did it at home, anyways. Claire has purportedly had some luck with using the potty at school, where she had been going diaper-less this week. Claire did have some accidents at school over the last few days, as proven by the wet shorts coming home with her in the evenings. But besides the wet clothes and several fruitless attempts at home, Kit and I had been pretty much in the dark about potty training. Tonight, though, Claire finally let us in on her potty training success.

After playing at the Abbott Avenue park for a while, we all headed to Dickey's Barbecue Pit for dinner. At the restaurant, Claire started wiggling around and looking worried and then sort of screamed, "I don't want to go pee-pee!" Kit took her to the bathroom for another fruitless attempt. Claire repeated this exercise a few minutes later, and this time I took her to the bathroom with no success. On the five-minute drive home, Claire worked herself up into a lather, screaming that she did not want to pee-pee.

We got home just in time for her bath, a now-dreaded routine which leaves Claire mad and me and/or Kit soaking wet from hold Claire in the bathtub. Interestingly, we had started to think Claire now hated baths because she was afraid of having an accident, as she had done a couple of times, when her daiper was off. As if to confirm our suspicions, Claire had recently started in on her same routine about screaming, "I don't want to pee-pee!" during her baths.

But as always, we put Claire on the potty before her bath tonight. This time, after a couple of minutes, she declared, with a smile on her face, "I did a pee-pee!" Punctuating the point, I could hear a tinkle sound in the water. Kit and I jumped around and cheered and clapped, and Claire seemed real proud. We put a congratulatory sticker on the "My Potty Poster" that Noni had given us.

The bonus was the usual screaming and fussing was absent during her bath. It was just a relaxed, civilized bath. Afterward, Claire even wanted to use her fun green froggie towel, which she had not asked for in a long time, and she declared with a smile that she was Katie the Frog. It was the most relaxed I had seen her (and myself) for bathtime in weeks.

This is just the start of diaper-independence, and I am sure many accidents and challenges lay ahead, but at least Claire is on her way now.