Potty Party

Mattie and I have been talking about it for weeks.

The balloons. The M&Ms. The chocolate syrup.

All in an effort to coax her to use the potty.

The term potty party shouldn't be confused with potty boot camp. I've heard others refer to this as a way to potty-train, but in no way will you find me involved in ANY kind of boot camp activity.

I have no desire to push Mattie into something she's not ready for, but the child is sending confusing signals.

On a daily basis she tells me when she has to tee-tee or poo-poo; she just refuses to do so on the potty. By refuses I mean she will sit there, but she holds it and won't go in the potty. As soon as I put the pull-up on, mission accomplished.

If I haven't mentioned this before, now would be a good time to state that Mattie is what you might call head-strong. She's the child that gets told not to do something, and is then likely to do it out of spite.

I can't remember where I read about the idea of a potty party - likely some other blog or parenting website. The idea is to spend an entire day, or weekend, letting the child run around bottomless and frequently take them to the bathroom.

I had a slight hope she'd actually use the potty today because on Thursday she was telling all the other mothers waiting to pick up their children from Jack's art class about the potty party. She made sure to mention the M&Ms and chocolate syrup every time!

No such luck.

We woke up this morning and headed straight to the new potty she picked out herself a few weeks ago. It was adorned with the balloons Matt bought last night because what's a party without balloons?!?!

She did spend most of the day without a diaper, but there was no going in said potty.