I have to confess, there was an ulterior motive in the Green Eggs and Ham book review. I started writing this post and decided that the review is better off in a post by itself.

Every time Sam offers the dog(!??!) green eggs and ham, the dog keeps adding the variables and says no. The effect is a cumulative story.

Yes, yes, I am coming to the point. I am working on Chula’s potty training. No, no you all read it right. I am the only person working, she is NOT. May be she is working against it…who knows?! I decided to not send her to day care and have her at home and work on the PT before my next quarter begins. I told her, no more diapers, only underpants, no poo-poo/pee-pee in the diapers, only in the potty, if you have to go tell me and I will take you to the potty.

Its been 5 long days and the whole thing is such a flop. I had the sticker system, she just does not care about it. The first day she was very proud of her stickers, ‘Appa, lookie look I made three poo-poo/pee-pee in the puuty. I got three stickels’ she showed him excitedly. From then on the sticker became two, one and today there were none.

I waited this long hoping that if I start late I can finish soon. But looks like Chula is going to take her own time. She made pee-pee in the chair. I told her, ‘Chula no pee-pee in the chair, only in the potty’. She made pee-pee on the floor, I told her, ‘Chula no pee-pee in the chair, no pee-pee on the floor, only in the potty’. Then she made pee-pee on the center table(If you are wondering how on earth, on the center table?, we have a certain model in which the top lifts off. Its perfect for little craft activities or TV dinners. She was sitting and during her breakfast eating and coloring on a shet of paper ) and I told her , ‘Chula no pee-pee in the chair, no pee-pee on the floor, no pee-pee on the table, only in the potty’. Of course there were numerous pee-pees in her underpants, and I told her ‘Chula no pee-pee in the chair, no pee-pee on the floor, no pee-pee on the table, no pee-pee in underpants only in the potty’. Just like the dog in Green eggs and Ham my list kept growing( and this is how Dr.Suess was dragged in to Chula’s potty training.)

Today I put Chula in her crib for her afternoon nap. I just strapped on a diaper incase she pees in her sleep. Apparently madam wanted to pee, remembered that I told her no pee-pee in her underpants, so she decided to take off her clothes, take off her diaper, squat in her crib and relieve herself. I walk in to the bedroom and this stark naked child is sitting in a corner of the crib and is giggling like Dolores Umbridge. Selective hearing and selective implementation. She remembers ‘not in the underpants’ part and decides to chuck the ‘only in the potty’ part!!

(Ofcourse it is now not in the crib, not on the chair, not on the …..blah …blah …blah….)

I wanted to record this because, sometime in the future, I will look back at this post and laugh my head off. Till then there is loads and loads of mopping and teeth grinding to do.

Updates: We are 9 days in to potty trainning now, no underpants, bare butt kind of works. Thanks Boo for the tip. Looks like with underpants she still thinks that it will hold whatever comes out. Without anything, she comes running to me yelling, ‘Come on mommy we need to go, poo-poo is falling out’ :). So we are headed in the right direction. Hope the streak continues.

Waiting to potty train till the child is 18 months or older does seem to help.

Funnies: She now sits in the pot and asks every one under the Sun she has ever met if they make their you know what in the potty or in their underpants.

When I am using the bathroom, she stands outside the bathroom and is cheering and clapping for me.