Well, today is the big day – Felicity gets the cast off of her right foot. We have been making such a big deal out of it all week, mostly talking about how she’ll be able to take a bath (3 weeks of sponge baths is too long!) and go to the swimming pool again (all of the kids are excited about that!). However, her daddy told me this morning that what she’s been telling him is that she’ll be able to wear panties now. Don’t get me wrong – I want her to be potty-trained – I just don’t actually want to potty-train her. I’ve been avoiding it for some time. I was waiting for summer and baseball season to be over, but then she ended up in the cast, and of course the cast has to stay dry, which means zero-error potty-training. There was no sense setting the little gal up for failure, now was there? I think that wearing a cast whose liner has been repeatedly soaked with #1 sends you straight down the road of social unacceptability, no matter how cute you are.

I’ve often referred to potty-training as an effective method of birth control. I just really don’t enjoy it. I guess I shouldn’t complain. I discovered the book Toilet Training in Less Than a Day when my oldest was little. It is basically pure, unadulterated, brain-washing. I devote one full, never-ending, emotionally and physically exhausting day to potty-training, and then stand back and reap the rewards. It sounds simple, and for the most part it is. I’ve had girls that were able to leave the house with no more diapers within 2 days of training with this method; I mention the girls because they seem to be the easiest to train, in my experience. I’ve used it 6 times now, and it is an effective, if not brilliant method. The child starts by potty-training a doll, which means they get to witness the triumph of doing it right and the horrors (wet pants!) of doing it wrong, without ever actually doing it themselves. I won’t describe the whole method – get the book if you’re really interested – I just hate the “practicing.” Here we go again…

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