The Nightmare Before Christmas

This morning I heard Ivy say to herself, "Don't pee on the carpet." 

It's been A WEEK. At 32 weeks gestation, we're running out of time before Ramona makes her big debut, and I knew that if I didn't get potty training out of the way now, I probably wouldn't have the energy to try again until Ivy started Junior High. Is the Christmas season an ideal time to put your family through Hell? No. But I'm only going to get more walrus-like and more emotional and what if I deliver early? So a week ago today we quit diapers.

We had three really difficult days. At the end of day 2 I called my mom in hysterics. I told Stephen that if day three still signaled no progress, we were going back to diapers. Indefinitely. But then the next day something started to click. OKAY FINE, I BRIBED MY CHILD. I bought her a Sofia The First doll, placed it on the bathroom towel rack, and told Ivy as soon as she did that which we had spent the previous 48 hours begging and pleading with her to do, Princess Sofia the first was hers. I've never seen anyone look at anything with as much longing as Ivy looked at that doll. And the next morning, she did it. And then she did it again. And then she kind of got it. And she's been making tremendous progress since. I mean, sure, it's a two-steps forward one-step back kind of progress, but she's 2. Accidents are bound to happen. Progress is progress. I'm maybe a little concerned about the psychological damage I've caused by essentially buying my daughter's obedience, but it will take her therapist years to uncover that little bad parenting secret, right?

Now I hate to get all serious and sentimental, but it's amazing how in the past week she's somehow gone from baby to small child. It could be her taking some responsibility for her actions, communicating her needs, and really doing her darndest to make her parents happy. It could be the lack of diaper bum in her now saggy pants. It could be the way she picks out her undies and matches them to her outfit (pink on pink on pink). Whatever it is, she just seems older and wiser and more capable of being a big sister. Which makes me all teary-eyed, but I am eight months pregnant and recently cried at a beer commercial, so take that for what it's worth.