Skipping Aisle 20

I was going to start this blog by typing, “On Saturday, the family went grocery shopping,” but I decided that I would first have to explain why the whole family has to go to the grocery store together.

There are two ways to grocery shop when you have a two-year-old in your family:
1) Both parents shop with said two-year-old, or
2) One parent shops alone.

For a time, I would take Reilly grocery shopping with me. However, I have come to understand (through a difficult trial and error period) that it is not an option for only one parent to take a pre-school age child to the local Publix.

Why, you ask? Reilly only rides in the cart for about two minutes before asking to get out. It is possible to keep her in the cart, but one has to bribe her with constant feeding. The last time the two of us shopped together, there were about 10 boxes of food open by the time we reached the checkout line.

If I were to refuse to open the box of goldfish or cheerios or gummy snacks, then she would whine to get out of the cart until my ears fell off. To let her out of the cart creates a bull in the china shop type situation, and I think everyone knows how hard it is to chase after a toddler when you’re pushing a shopping cart and at the same time trying to remember what sort of tofu your wife likes to eat.

So, on Saturday, the family went grocery shopping.

The best part of the shopping trip was when we passed aisle 20. The diaper aisle. Shawn and I were giddy.

That’s right, Reilly is potty trained. Now, she’s not 100% by any means. She still sleeps in a diaper, and has the occasional accident, but for the most part, she pee-pees in the potty with no problem. And, true to her independent nature, she has even started going to the bathroom by herself. In fact, just this morning she announced that she had to go and started walking back to the bathroom. I followed to see if she needed any assistance, and when I reached the door she put her hand out to stop me and said, “No, daddy! Go in the chicken, daddy!”

(For some reason, Reilly reverses the words ‘chicken’ and ‘kitchen.’ When she wants dinner, she asks to cook some ‘kitchen’. When she wants to get a juice out of the refrigerator, she leads me to the ‘chicken’.)

Back to the potty training. I suppose some people would like to know how we did it. No? Too bad, I’m too proud to stay silent. First, we modeled the behavior that we expected, which is to say, we brought her to the bathroom with us each and every time we had to go. Second, we bought “Potty Power,” a potty training DVD. Third, we rewarded any successful potty attempts with a “special treat” (an M&M) and a flower stamp on her hand (stamp it up!).We also gave her a lot of encouragement; clapping and woohooing and so forth. When Reilly had to go, we often had to sit for dozens of minutes at a stretch, so patience was a huge ingredient. We never pushed her, and never made a big deal about accidents, which seemed to happen mostly on our rugs and not on our hardwood floor, which made cleanup that much more frustrating.

In the end, all the work that we did—as parents—was all just a set-up for pre-school, where the potty training was finalized. There, it was gentle peer-pressure and a kind teacher that brought Reilly the rest of the way. The first week, she came home in a different outfit each day. Lately, when I pick her up, she’s wearing the same outfit we took her to school in.

The kid just makes me proud.

To end, I will quote a song from “Potty Power”:

No more diapers for me!
Say good bye to diapers:
Bye-bye!