Potty Training, Day 3

Okay, so maybe Grace isn’t so much with the program as I thought…

Two accident-free days for Grace encouraged me to raise the bar a bit. We’d go a full half-hour between mandatory pee breaks. Since that might be just a smidge longer than she can actually go, it will give her an opportunity to take herself to the potty. (Because, as you recall, one of my concerns is that Grace’s extreme passivity will have her relying too much on reminders. AUTONOMY is what we’re after here!)

AND, as a reward for being such a BIG GIRL, she would wear the panties her mother had sent.

Because we all know how HIGHLY MOTIVATING Big Girls Panties are!!!

Well, maybe. They love to wear them. Does that prevent them from letting fly while wearing them? Do they hesitate in the slightest to gross them up? Um, no. Not so’s I’ve noticed. Still! Big girl panties are an important part of the process. And Grace’s mother sent a whole whack of big girl panties.

Day three was the day.

We make much of them. She shows them off to all her friends. (Side note: Is there anything cuter than a toddler hauling up on dress or shirt, rounded belly bulging, so that their friends can gather round and admire the underwear? Not much, I say. Hee.) She skips around the house, pausing at intervals to pull the hem of her skirt to her chin so she can take in the wonders of the panties.

And then she pees in them. Standing in the middle of the living room, not two feet from the potty. The potty which she does not even glance at as the pee splashes around her feet.

First accident in two days.

Well, boo.

But that’s okay! She has LOTS more big girl panties! And the next pair? It has BUTTERFLIES on it. That is even MORE EXCITING than the FLOWERS on the last pair. Whee!!!

And twenty minutes later, she poos on the butterflies.

Well, damn.

A third pair (teddybears) get soaked, not that I found that out right away. Jazz had just done a pee. We were all celebrating her accomplishment, and Jazz had been given her Smartie. Grace trots up, hand out for her Smartie.

“Well, no, lovie. Jazz gets a Smartie because she did a pee. You didn’t do a pee.”

“Yes, I did!”

“No, love, you didn’t. Jazz did.” I indicate the potty with its centimetre of pale yellow liquid. “Jazz had a pee, so Jazz gets a Smartie. When you do a pee, you will get one, too.”

“I did a pee!” She smiles and turns, pointing. “I did a pee onna couch!!!”

The couch? Yes, indeed. There on the couch is a dismayingly large dark splotch. She has indeed peed on the couch. Moreover, she is very proud. She peed on the couch, and she is proud. Seems Grace has decided that as long as the pee was conscious and volitional, THAT COUNTS FOR A SMARTIE! And her teddybear panties? Soaked. SOAKED.

Well, damn again. (In fact, “damn” isn’t nearly strong enough for this creative new twist in the proceedings, but that’s as strong as I get on this blog.) The hell with the Big Girl Panties. They are not helping us in our endeavor, that’s clear. Back to bare. And…

for the next two hours, Grace performs flawlessly. In the potty, every time.

Huh. So I put the panties back on, and…

she soaks ’em.

Yup. In Grace’s mind, panties = diapers. Nuts. That’s an annoying hiccup.

On the bright side, so long as she’s bare, she’s very reliable. Though I normally have them back in pants by the end of the first week, we’ll try another few days to consolidate things for Grace, see if that does the trick.

But… Smarties for peeing on the couch? Yeesh…

Potty Adventures, Day Two

I have two potties, but thus far have only used one. On Monday, Jazz spent most of her day sleeping; on Tuesday, Rory wasn’t here. Two kids can share one potty.

This is not laziness on my part. I can carry two pots up the stairs as easily as one. No, the thing is, I have a puppy. A seven-month-old puppy, who is VERY INTERESTED in this whole potty-training endeavor.

Very interested in bare butts. (Oh, ugh.)
Very interested in pee on the floor. (Whee!)
And very, very interested in potties. Even nicely rinsed potties still smell heavenly-divine to a seven-month-old puppy. A seven-month-old irrepressible puppy. (Actually I think that phrase is a redundancy. All seven-month-old puppies are irrepressible.)

Daisy! Away from the potty! Away!

Daisy! No!

Daisy! Leave that thing alone!

Daisy! Get your nose out of there!

“Daisy!” [Calling over my shoulder to my own two kids, chatting in the kitchen, as I fend Daisy off with one hand while trying to help Grace sit properly] “Will someone please crate this animal?”

ONE of my potties, see, has a lid. The other does not. So one potty is Daisy resistant, while the other is a veritable smorgasbord of all manner of YUMMY, YUMMY scents and savories.

Ick.

We are using the potty with the lid. Ahem.

And yesterday, on day two, Jazz was rested and ready to potty. She was interested in the potty, but she was INTO the Smarties. Fervently. Rory and Grace hadn’t thought of it, but Jazz instantly realized that if she gets a Smartie every time she plops her butt on the potty… well, she’ll just do that, won’t she? All. Day. Long!!!

I’ve been using a timer so I don’t lose track of how long those little pee-bombs have been darting around my home. Originally it was set to 20 minutes, but the girls were doing so very well, I moved it to 25 minutes mid-morning. After a three-minute stretch in which Jazz “earned” herself four Smarties, I decided she could ONLY go when the timer beeped.

Because, yeah, I bought the big bag, but she’d have consumed the thing single-handedly before lunch at that rate… Moreover, she’d managed to squeeze out a driplet of pee each time, so I figure the girl has plenty of control. If she can force it out, she can hold it in.

That’s the theory, anyway.

“When the timer beeps, you can try. You wait for the timer now.” Well, poo. You know how historical novels often have their young heroines “flounce” when unhappy about something? I had a mental picture of what that must be, but I’d never seen anyone really flounce before.

Jazz flounces.

Upon being told she would have to WAIT for the next Smartie Opportunity, Jazz flounced off to the craft set out on the dining table. And when that timer beeped?

As it happend, Grace was closer to the potty, so Grace was setting herself down when Jazz came roaring up, SMARTIES on the brain. Grace is a slow-mover. She eats slowly, she dawdles when she walks, she talks slowly. Grace does nothing quickly. So in the time it takes Jazz to slip down from the chair in the dining room and bomb across to the potty in the living room, Grace has almost, but not quite, settled her butt on the potty.

Jazz flies into the room, and performs a very creditable body check, causing Grace to sit, not on the potty, but on the floor beside the potty.

Nice try, little Ms. Enthusiasm. But you can wait.

We resettle Grace on the potty. Grace pees. Jazz claps and cheers. Jazz sits. And produces a sizeable poo. Grace looks stunned. I think it honestly hadn’t occurred to her THAT was a possibility.

Lessons learned all round then. And we do the potty dance again, cheering and clapping for the steaming pile.

And then, before Daisy succeeds in her efforts to get up close and very personal with the S.P., I whisk the potty upstairs for a thorough cleaning.

At the end of today:

There were no accidents at all.
Grace is still on track for training.
Jazz is probably going to get there even sooner.
Daisy has not ONCE managed to get her nose in a pile of… anything.

I’d call that a success.

Potty Adventures, Day One

Materials: three toddlers, one potty, a timer, a big-ass bag o’Smarties, and a jug of apple juice.

Method: Sit bare-bottomed toddlers on potty, reward with Smarties, then refill toddlers with watered-down apple juice. Repeat every 20 minutes.

Results:

At the end of day one, my evaluation would be that:

— Grace is most likely to be trained — fully trained, able to get herself to the potty on her own without any adult intervention or encouragement — within a week or two.
— Rory appears not to have one single clue about what we’re after
— Jazz arrived so seriously sleep-deprived after two weeks’ holiday that she mostly slept, so I have no assessment of her to offer

BUT!

It’s early days.

Grace is a very passive little mite. She might continue to need reminders for … months, frankly, though I’d certainly rather not. But it’s well within her character.

Rory might yet get it. That Big Dramatic Pee he had while seated at the dining table yesterday, pee rolling across his chair, soaking his thighs and splashing to the floor might be the event that puts it together for him.

“Oh, THAT’s what it means when I feel this…”

I’m hoping. I might be woefully naive, but that’s the theory, anyway. We’ll see if the penny drops today.

And Jazz. Well, she slept FOUR AND A HALF HOURS yesterday, so perhaps she will be more awake and able to participate today. (Two and a half in the morning, two in the afternoon. This from a child who hasn’t napped in the morning for over a year. When I said “seriously sleep-deprived”, I wasn’t exaggerating. But she looked a whole lot less paler and trembly when she went home than when she arrived, so that’s good.)

Rory and Grace were very interested in the potty. And they were VERY interested in the Smarties. Rory was a little uncertain about the bare-bottom-edness, but made the adjustment without fuss, and then appeared to forget about it… except for his happy discovery that going pants-free makes it REALLY CONVENIENT to play with his bits.

Lovely.

“Rory. You’re not going bottom-less so you can play with yourself all day. Let that thing go.” (Wholly predictable, of course. Boys and their toys. What can you do?)

They had three hours in the morning between arrival and lunch. Three hours (180 minutes)/20 minutes = 9 potty opportunities. (Equals nine Smarties!!! Times (mostly) two children = 18. Plus the one I took each time, bringing it up to 27. Hey, I need fortification, too!)

Good thing I bought the big bag…

At the end of all that, Rory had peed in the potty precisely … not one time. Though when I asked, “So, did you pee?” He would cheerfully say, “Yes!” And then we would all peer into the EMPTY potty.

“Um, no, sweetie, you didn’t. There’s no pee in there.”

“Oh.”

Rory’s capacity is prodigious, and his ability to hold it admirable. He sat on that potty three times an hour all morning, and it was not until we sat at the table for lunch that the floodgates opened. It was the noise that alerted me. The Niagara Falls of pee rolling off his chair and onto the floor.

SWOOP!!!

As I swing him by his armpits from the dining chair to the potty, I chirp out cheerfully, “Pee goes in the POTTY, Rory. When you need to pee, you run sit on the potty!!” And he sits, and of course nothing happens, because it’s all splashed over the chair and the floor. (Yes, still. You didn’t think I stopped to clean it up before putting him on the potty? Ha. The point is the POTTY. The pee will be there in two more minutes. Unless, of course, Daisy gets at it first. In which case, NOT MY PROBLEM. Ha!)

And Grace?

“Did you do a pee, Grace?”
“No. I dih-yunt.”

And she knew this WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING!!! Rory could look into the EMPTY potty, and be sure — SURE! — that he had indeed peed. So, one point for Grace.

Two or three times later.

“I did a pee!”
And she did! And not just a whisper, a drizzle, a driplet of liquid, but a real, decent, full-bladdered pee. Which means she can hold it. Yay!

Grace produced two good-sized pees yesterday morning. No accidents. No false claims of production. Grace, it would seem, knows what it feels like to have a full bladder, knows how to hold it till she gets that far, knows to release it into the potty, and knows when she has or hasn’t done so.

WELL DONE, GRACE!!!

But Rory is not out of the game yet. He’s still interested, he’s still game to try. So game that, unlike Grace, he will sit on the potty without being told. Which I guess means that he sat MORE than 18 times… and still didn’t manage a single pee in the confines of the pot. Initiative, 1; Efficacy, 0. You win some, you lose some.

I first discovered his initiative on my way downstairs from having tipped Grace’s pee into the toilet. Tipped the pee, rinsed the pot, trip lightly down the stairs, round the corner into the livingroom, and there is Rory, SITTING ON THE POT-FREE POTTY.

We have all experience the Universe’s wry sense of humour. What are the odds that THIS would be the time Rory managed to actually PEE IN THE POTTY? Pretty great, I figured. If it’s going to happen, NOW would be the time. Just so the universe can snigger at me.

“AGH! Rory! Off the potty!”

Sober second thought suggested that I shouldn’t have reacted with quite so much fervor. Way to go, Mary. Make the boy REALLY TENSE when he sits on that thing… if he’ll sit at all. Bah.

“It’s okay, Rory, you were just trying to pee! I’m sorry I shouted. I was just surprised. It’s good to pee! Only we need to make sure this bowl is in there, so the pee doesn’t spill on the floor. See?”

I smile winningly. Please don’t be traumatized. Please, please, please…

He stands, somberly staring. Rory has a very practiced sombre stare. He stands, watches me slide the pot into the chair

please, please, please…

watches me slide the pot into the chair, and sits back down again.

I think I heard some angels sing. Or at least hum a little.

“I can have a Smartie now, Mary?”

Ah. Smarties. No matter what trauma the day may bring, Smarties make it all better.

Pass that bag, would you?

The Great Potty Adventure

Rory is 30 months old.
Grace is 30 months old.
Jazz is 28 months old.

You would think that somewhere in that group would be a child showing the slightest inclination to toilet training, wouldn’t you? For a good piece of the past week, Grace’s little butt has been anything from bright fiery red through … well, worse. You really don’t want me to describe what that poor mite has suffered.

“It hurts a little bit,” she says as I dab cautiously amongst the raw spots, trying to clean without causing undue agony. (A certain amount is clearly unavoidable, but we’ll avoid the undue stuff, shall we?) “It hurts a little bit,” she says, wincing.

“A little.” Grace is not one for understatement. A small set-back causes an enormous flood that can go on for quite a while. But when her backside is raw and I go tromping through it with a scrubby cloth… it hurts a “little bit”. The stoicism makes me try even harder to go gentle.

I am, of course, talking up the whole “When you’re not wearing diapers, this won’t happen any more!!!” I’m talking to all three of them when I say these things, because Rory and Jazz invariably gather round when I’m changing Grace these days. It would be nice to believe it’s empathy — they’ve both been there at one point or another, but their interest is more ghoulish than kind. Like gawkers at a particularly grisly car accident.

“When you use the potty, your poo can’t hurt your bum!”

So far, no takers.

These kids need a nudge. And a nudge is what they’re going to get. This week, I’m going All Out With The Potty. It’s my week of trial.

And I anticipate it will be a TRIAL.

Because, really, given their ages, I may as well just do it. All three. At the same time.

(I may be insane.)

However, given my preference for late and short, at least it won’t last long. What I do, see, is arm myself with Smarties. (Smarties, for my American readers, are not pastel discs of mildly tangy sugar. Those are Rockets. Smarties are loooovely chocolate-filled, candy coated slightly flattened beads. Yes, like M&M’s… only much, much better.)

Armed with a large bag of Smarties and not one, but two potties, I will enter the potty-training fray. (I don’t own three, and can’t see that it should really be necessary. Right? Right? That mental picture I have of two seated children watching the third poop on my livingroom floor… that’s just borrowing trouble, right?)

I will show them the potties.
I will show them the Smarties.
I will explain the system. Which is, for the first day or so: “Every time you sit on the potty, you get a Smartie!!!”

They like this system. 🙂

And so, every twenty minutes, they sit on the potty. And they get a Smartie. And then they get a drink. (An ounce or two is plenty; they will, after all, be drinking EVERY TWENTY MINUTES.) If they don’t want to drink that much water, they can have juice!!! And at Mary’s house? Juice just doesn’t happen. You’re thirsty, you drink water. You get milk with your lunch. You want orange or apple juice? You eat an orange or an apple. End of story. But for potty training, they get juice!

Smarties and juice? At Mary’s house?!!? It’s all VERY exciting.

The idea being that, after a day or two of EXTREME DRINKING and every-twenty-minute sitting, they will, inevitably, unavoidably, irresistibly, have PEED IN THE POTTY. A day or two later, when they are 1) sitting without resistance (not that I’m anticipating any with this group, but you never know) and 2) we have managed to catch a few pees, the system changes. “Now you will get one Smartie for a pee, and two for a poo!!!” (No, they’re no longer getting them for just sitting. I don’t point that out, trusting the child’s attention will be diverted by the possibility of TWO AT ONCE!!! It always is, mwah-ha.)

Because now that the connection has been made, I’m after intentional peeing. We almost always get to this point the first week. If, at the end of the first week, they still don’t have THE FAINTEST CLUE what this is all about, I just don’t persist. We drop it and try again in another month or six weeks.

I’m watching for awareness, control, intent. When I see that, I’ll let them go longer between sittings, up to 45 minutes or an hour, and when they can manage that, the system becomes less systematic and more organic. When they know what they need to do, and can stay clean and dry for an hour or more at a stretch, I let them take the reins. They can decide when they need to go. I tell them this, of course. “When you feel a pee or a poo coming, you go to the potty. I won’t be telling you any more.”

Most kids are fine with this, and those kids, we call them trained. If you start late, that can happen on day two, but more often it’s somewhere between two and three weeks. (This is for daytime clean and dry. Night-time can lag, sometimes by a few days, sometimes by a couple of months or more. Depends on the child. And that, happily, is NOT MY PROBLEM.) 🙂

I’ve potty-trained dozens of children. I know what I’m doing. I’ve seen it go like the wind, I’ve seen it start and stop before finally getting it, I’ve seen it drag on and on…

But I’ve never tried training THREE AT ONCE.

Ye gods.

As my grandmother would’ve said, “In for a penny, in for a pound!” (Meaning, in this instance, “if you’re going to go, go big!”)

I may be insane.
I will almost certainly be insane a week from now.
But a week. I’m giving it my all for a week, and then we’ll measure progress and see where we go from there.

Wish me luck.

They live in a simple world

“Tyler, you have to push your pants down over your bum. You can’t just push them down over your penis.”

Tyler stands in front of the potty, his thumbs looped into the waistband of his pants, each a couple centimetres off center, pushing down as hard as he can. While he’s managing to shove the waistband a few centimeters south in the front, his small bottom is firmly and intractably covered. He’s only been at it for a few seconds. I’m waiting to see if he can figure it out, but Emily has clearly run out of patience. Her voice is an entertaining combination of sage and exasperated.

Tyler is unconvinced. The flaw in her reasoning is so obvious. Really.

“But the pee comes out my penis.”

“Well, of course it does, Tyler, but what good does that do you if it’s still in your pants?”

Tyler redoubles his efforts. Emily sighs.

“Tyler! You have to move your hands around to your BUM! You will never get your pants down like that!”

Tyler retriples his efforts.

“TY-ler! You can’t get your penis out if your bum is still in. Honestly!” Big sister Emily strides over and hauls firmly down on the back of his pants. “There! You see?”

Tyler gazes down. “There is my penis!”

“I TOLD you and I TOLD you, but you didn’t listen. Now do you know, you silly goose?” Her voice is a bit hectoring, yes, but she’s also smiling.

“I push at the front and you push at the back, and I can get my penis out!”

You know, you take this conversation out of its current context, and it rapidly becomes X-rated. That happens around here…

They both watch with satisfaction as Tyler completes the task at hand.

“Thank you, Emily. You is my helping sister.”

“You’re welcome, Tyler. But next time I don’t want to push your bum anymore, okay?”

“Oh, okay.”

I’m not sure that conversations like this aren’t one of the top five things that keep me in this job…

All pooped out

Little Noah is totally potty trained, and the thing that tipped the scales for us was not the infamous pee-bottle, but Smarties.

Yup. Good old chocolate-y motivator in a candy-coated package. Noah was told he would get one for a pee, and two for a poo. Suddenly, using the potty was very, very interesting!!

After a week of success, Noah was told that he would only get Smarties for poops. No more Smarties for pees.

He took it well, really. Because really, this would cut his Smartie intake by about 90%. A toddler with the will to pee can drink a LOT of water, and make many, many, many pees in day. But poo? Well, there’s only so much a body can poo.

Or so you’d think.

“I haffa poo, Mary!”
“Away you go to the potty, then.”

And yes, there in the bowl is a decent little arc.

“Good man!”
“I get Smarties now?”
“Yes, you do.”
“Not when a pee?”
“No, no Smarties for a pee. Just for poo.”
“Tank you.”

“Mary, I got to poo!”
“You do? You already did one this morning, but if you have to go, away you go.”

There is substantially more wait time and effort for this one, but, after a minute or so, there in the potty lies another reeking rainbow. Smaller than the last one of only an hour before, but definitely a poo. Wonder what he had for dinner last night?

“Mary, I got to poo!”
“Again? Are you sure?”
“Uh-huh. I got to poo.”
“All right, little man. Do your best.”

He sits. And he waits. And he sits. His face is an intensity of concentration, stern and fixed. He waits some more…

“Mary! I did a poo!”
THIS I have to see.

And there, in the bowl… a smidge, a dot, an iota of shit.

He has managed to squeeze out, by sheerest force of toddler will, the requisite excrement.

Smarties are one helluva motivator, I tell you.

Notes re: potty training

When you think your child is ready to be potty trained, there are a few things to consider.

1. It is good to consult with your caregiver first. You are not seeking her permission of course, but it is only polite to at least give her a heads-up that it’s in the air.

2. Moreover, it is wise to realize that she probably has insight and perspective that could be valuable. It may come as a surprise, but she is not uninformed in these matters.

So, the thing NOT to do is show up on Monday morning with a toddler in underpants, a bag containing three changes of clothes, and no diapers. Because, you know, that’s just sorta presumptuous.

3. When embarking on potty training, consider the logistics of daycare. Your child probably does truly deight in peeing in the bottle you hold in front of him. Could you be doing that with four other tots in the room? Well, then.

4. Logistics, part two: When a child is potty training, pants should be loose and very easily pulled up and down. Track pants are excellent — without underpants, even better. Cute little jeans without elastic waists? Bad idea. Cute little elastic-free jeans held up by a BELT? Bad, bad idea. And if the belt is stiff, requires two (adult) hands, and the pants CANNOT be pulled down without undoing said unco-operative belt?

Your kid will be in diapers that day. Count on it.

Harrumph.

I think he might train early…

Noah, he of One Word Utterances, looks up at me.

“Poopoo.”

“You have a poop in your diaper?”

“Aye.” (Really. He says ‘aye’ for ‘yes’. His parents and I have decided he’s channelling a Scotsman. Either that, or he was Robert the Bruce in a former life.)

And he runs away. Except… he’s not running away. He’s running to our change area. No, I don’t have a changing table. I have a nice diaper shelf which doubles as an end table. The tots are changed on the floor close to the diaper shelves.

He bombs over to the shelves and takes a diaper, one of his diapers, from his section of the shelf, and lies down on his back. When I catch up with him, he hands the diaper to me.

“Nie-puh.” …”Poopoo.”

“You want me to put that clean diaper on you?”

“Aye.”

He’ll be two in a couple of months. I’ve been faked out before, but I’m hoping I see early training in his near future…

Tea and Pee and ME, first!

I am at that “certain age”, and by and large I think I look pretty fine for all my years. The wrinkles I genuinely don’t mind — evidences of a life well lived — the gray hair I cover, and the various bodily creaks and groans I get seen to by my RMT daughter. (Hee!! Well worth paying her train fare to visit.)

However, the weight? The thickening of the body? That I don’t like so well, and the weight, she does creep on if you don’t pay attention. So I do the obvious — avoid the junk and put a little activity into every day. (Sadly, chasing toddlers doesn’t seem to be sufficient all by itself. I can’t think for the life of me why not. Booo.)

I also have a weight-maintenance strategy (shared, as I happens by Mir): “tea as food substitute.”

When I get that sudden “MUST EAT” urge, I indulge in a little self-talk: “You’re not hungry, you’re bored. Have some TEA!”

So I do. Cup after cup of the stuff. The first one or two in the morning are black and caffeinated, the rest are herbal. Mint, rooibos, raspberry, spice… So much choice — even though they all taste the same: water. Beautifully scented water, but water. I don’t care. What I’m after is HOT and calorie-free.

(I’m drinking even more this week, seeking some form of heat. Minus 28C with a windchill of -39C (-18F and -38F). Even inside, I need two layers and a sweater. Boooo.)

But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. With all that input, there has to be an output. And so there is. Lots and lots. Copious. Many trips up the 15 stairs. Many, many trips. 15 steps up, 15 steps down. (Which is another way in which lots of tea contributes to weight maintenance. And — I live in hope — semi-decent thighs??)

Problem is, I live in a home knee-deep in toddlers, many of whom are toilet trained. Toilet trained, thus also going up those 15 steps to the bathroom.

Going up them slowly. Sooooo slowly. One-step, one-step, sometimes stopping to check out a piece of lint or take a wee breather or simply stare blankly into space. I could harry them up the stairs, “Hurry UP! I have to pee, too!”

But that takes time, time I may or may not have, so I prefer just to pound on by them. Leap like an aging gazelle over their trundling bodies, whip into the bathroom, claim that premium space with my butt. “Ha! I got here first!” By the time they’re finished all that lint-picking and space-gazing, I’ll probably be done, anyway, and if I’m not?

There are two potties in this house, and one toilet. Let them figure it out…

We knows ALL ABOUT Civility and Gracious Conversation around here.

Picture two sweet elderly ladies, of the generation that values good manners and gentle civility. They speak in soft tones, they interact with gracious warmth. Their questions are rich with interest; they listen patiently to each other’s answers.

Got the picture? Feel the ambience?

Transfer that feeling, if you will, to the following conversation betwixt one Emily, seated on the potty, and Timmy, who crouches in front of her.

“You goin’ onna potty?”
“Yes. Yes, I am sitting on the potty.”
“You havin’ a poo?”
“No, I am not having a poo. I am doing a pee.”
“Maybe you will do a poo inna minnit.”
“No, I don’t think so. I think I will have a poo another time. This time I only need a pee.”
“Yeah. Sometimes you onny hasta do one. I needa poo.”
“You do? Then I will hurry up, and when I’m all done my pee, you can do a poo on top of my pee!”
“Oh, good idea! Thanks, Emmayee.”
“Your wekkum, Timmy.”

The whole conversation positively drips with Gracious Civility. That, and a little bit of pee.