Out for Coffee

Warning: This story includes potty training-related details. If you're not up for potty humor and graphic descriptions, please skip this post.

We're at that stage where it's time to start potty training. The books say don't push it, but I kinda feel like potty training is the warm up to college entrance stories.

"Oh, so-and-so, was so easy to train. He didn't like to be dirty. I think it took a weekend."

"Blah blah trained herself at 18 months!"

Freud had A LOT to say about it. Quote from the very authoritative About.com: Freud believed that positive experiences during this stage served as the basis for people to become competent, productive, and creative adults. Failure to be encouraging during the anal stage means Zora is destined for The Couch.

Yeah, no pressure there.

So like a good parent, I've been encouraging without being pushy. We've gotten a lift-the-flap potty book. We take field trips into the bathroom. I let her flush. I let her pull out the toilet paper. I let her look at her poop. She even likes to look at dog poop and her friend Will's poop.

Recently, I started associating her poop with the toilet by taking her diaper to the bathroom and "dropping the kids off at the pool." After a satisfying plop, I waved to Zora's bowel movement.

"Bye bye, poopy," I said.

Zora, who had followed me in, looked up. "Where did poopy go?" she asked. "Out for coffee and hangaburrs?"