Taking the plunge: Toddler style

My kids have always been an endless source of amusement for me.  The latest being Punky and Chicken fighting over their toys and while each tugging in their direction, they will squeal like stuck pigs until one or both let go.  I'm waiting for the day they both let go and go sailing across the room.  It's coming and I can only pray I have the video camera.

Then there's Chicken's fear of grass.  Yes, he refuses to step in it and when we put him in it on purpose and he falls, he acts like a girly-man and cries, holding his hands up as if he's been contaminated.  I will say he's getting better about it and actually played for some time in it on Saturday.

Let's not forget Punky's fear of bugs.  She found a miniscule lady bug on the window seal in her playroom not long ago and requested I kill it.  She STILL talks about the stinkin' lady bug.  I tried to force her to help me smoosh it, and I found out the extent of her fear.  She shook, screamed and pulled away from me until I was convinced that she had decided the sprained wrist was well worth getting away from the lady bug who was threatening her well-being.  Of course, I let her go and killed it.

I honestly don't know where my kids get these things from.  I consider myself a very introspective person who is quite objective about my kids.  I don't start anything with them (like telling them bugs are bad) that I think might lead to something bigger.  The only thing I can figure out is Hubby's mom saying "eww" when she was little and saw a bug or something in her books.

This latest fear is one she's come up with all on her own.  Potty training has been going amazingly well.  I've thought for some time she's been ready but with the move and everything else, the timing was all off so I was never able to devote a lot of time to it until this last week.  She took to it like a duck to water!  She's been telling me when she has to go pee pee in the potty almost every time.  We have maybe 1 accident a day and on a bad day 3.  Pooping however, has been an issue.  She will cry and beg me to let her up.  "I can't push out the poo poo Mommy!"  She only tells me afterward, leaving me to clean up "goat poop" out of her panties.  Let me tell you, my fair readers, that's not an easy task.  Those little suckers roll every which way!  I have yet to perfect a technique of cleaning it without risking poo hands and don't relish the task when I see the little bulges staring back at me.

We've talked a lot about putting poo poo in the potty.  In fact, so much so I've been forced to take her along with me during my potty visits.  I would rather suffer the embarrassment than the stinky, gross clean up that comes with her lack of understanding...or stubbornness as I'm beginning to believe.  So today, we were standing at the kitchen counter, shredding chicken (or rather I shredding, Punky playing with refrigerator magnets) and she said, "I need to go poo poo!" And she grabs her hiney.  WOOHOO!  Let's go!  I throw chicken in every direction and off we go.  I pull her panties down and see skid marks instead of goat poop.  Another WOOHOO!  I plop her on the toilet and her face gets red.  Then I hear the blessed sound of poop hitting plastic.  I stand up and do a dance, I praise her, we called Daddy, we sung the potty song and amidst her sweet giggles, I go somewhere no other pregnant woman has gone.

I give her free reign to pick whatever treat she wants from my unhealthy preggo stash.  She can have a cookie, she can have chocolate milk, even a doggone bowl of sugar if she wants, she can have whatever she can find that tickles her fancy.  And what does she choose?  A sucker.  She wants a sucker.  You want a sucker, Punky?  Here, pick one out.  You want two?  FIVE?  Here, have 20.  This is what happens when you go poo poo in the potty!  Take them all.  Yes, they're all yours.

No need to be scared to poo poo in the potty.  Good things happen when you take the plunge and become a big girl!