You gotta fight for your right to potty

I think Nora has been showing the earliest signs of toilet readiness for awhile now. She presents herself to us when she wants a new diaper. She announces when she is carrying around a bonus item in her drawers. Lastly, she is nowhere to be seen when she has a job to do. I believe it's time to resurrect our little potty.

I know that lots of people contend with a great deal of misery in conjunction with potty training. The fact that Fiona basically trained herself means that statistically speaking, this time around will be much, much different for us.

But as we've realized countless times before for other things, it's only after we utilize our time-tested methods that we realize they're no longer any good. So we'll probably just do what worked so well last time around. We already started today by setting the potty out (well before we expect it to be of any use) in a main room so she can begin to get accustomed to it and realize that it's her own personal fixture. Once she's finished playing jack-in-the-box with the lid and when the novelty of stuffed animals in the well-bleached chamber pot has died down, we'll move it to the bathroom. Our "open-door policy" there will escalate to explaining that we, the bigger people in the family, use the big potty instead of diapers, and that someday she will too. If Nora acts interested we may also start bringing home potty books.

Around this point Fiona, at age 2.5, announced her intentions with the potty one day, then sat down and realized them. About a month and a half later, our daytime toilet training was just about complete. Who's to say how long the process will take this time around? All we know is that this is probably the last time we'll buy diapers until we may be lucky enough to buy them for a grandchild, so we're in no hurry.