Tuesday, January 6, 2009

I'LL SEE YOU ON THE POTTY

So basically, the babeola is the size of a small three year old. Or a very large two year old*. She's in size 6 Pampers (even though her weight makes her technically a size 5, something about her proportions demands a bigger size). However, we've recently noticed she has red, irritated marks in her thigh creases from the size 6. Meaning, it's time for *gulp* size 7.

In case you are not raising a giantess, size 7 is 1)hard to find and 2) not sold in bulk at Sam's Club thereby making diapers more expensive than ever before.

After size 7, I think we have to venture into Depends territory. Which, yikes! Even more expensive, not to mention weird.

I did look at cloth diapers and ordered some samples, but guess what? They are not made for giantesses. The samples have ended up on her stuffed animals, because we certainly aren't going to get any use out of them.

Given that the babeola's growing out of her diapers and that we can usually tell when she's making a deposit, I picked up some potty training/learning books. Not that I'm looking forward to potty learning. I'd much prefer student services at her college handle the whole thing, because potty learning is a huge pita. Huge.

But as it turns out, potty learning doesn't fit either. She's not ready for anything but what the experts call 'pre-potty learning.'

Meaning we need to teach her in/out, on/off, sit, go, come and a whole host of other concepts if we want to start potty learning by 18 months (which is the current goal). Sit and go she knows how to say and what they mean. I think come is in her receptive vocabulary.  On/off and in/out are now priority one.

That and constantly discussing my business, as observing mommy on the potty is considered an important component of potty readiness. It appears that we need to cultivate a certain amount of fetishistic voyeurism for successful potty learning.

Conversations in our home now include such phrases as:

"Is mommy going potty? Yes, she is!"

"Where is mommy. Is she...is she on the potty?"

All said in a squeaky, Elmo-on-speed voice. You know, just in case me pulling down my pants wasn't enough to capture the babeola's attention.

*She never looks all that big or tall to me. Until we run into a two year old that only comes up to her shoulder. Even so, we don't get too many people thinking she's older than she is. She still has a round baby face and an obvious toddle.  Or maybe she just looks shorter than she is. Maybe that's it. People often say I look shorter than I am and I'm 5'10".

2 comments:

Jenners said...

Oh Lord. Potty training. I will tell you the one thing that I learned: they will do it when they are ready and not a moment before.

Also, being physically ready and mentally ready are two different things. We had a very hard time with my son until we were able to discover he had a huge fear of being flushed down the toilet. Took awhile to uncover this little nugget. We then ended up building a "holding on" thing out of PVC pipe to help him. Don't waste your money on fancy talking musical toilets either.

I'll be interested to see how this goes. And you might want to look into Pull-Ups -- they seem to work better for "bigger" kids! Easier on moms too I think!

And I wanted to thank you for your thoughtful comment on my post today re: blogging resolutions. You always have a such a neat way of putting things. I guess because you are a writer! : )

Laura Marchant said...

I started BG training as soon as she could walk. In the beginning it was just getting her use to it. If she woke up dry I would throw her on the potty and she would go. It took a few months but she got it. Good luck.