7 colors a week

Peanut can tell you what color every day of the week is. Monday is green, Tuesday is blue, Sunday is her favorite color, orange. Each day has a different color.

No, she's not reading auras or anything supernatural. She's talking about her underwear. Once she was potty-trained a few months ago, I took her shopping to choose her own undies. Much to my disappointment at the time, she chose the day-of-the-week undies; each pair has a different day of the week printed on it. My first thought was, "Great, now this falls on ME to get the right pair on her each day." It's hard enough for me to remember what day it is. Now I have to coordinate undies too?! Then I remembered she can't read. Perfect.

It turns out I'm too anal retentive (love that potty-training double entendre) to ignore the writing on the undies. So, I made sure she had the right undies on the right days from the get-go. And Peanut still loves it. Before she had the colors memorized, she would ask at bedtime, "What color is tomorrow?" When you're 3, it's important to know the color of your undies at all times.

So, in the words of Peanut, "What color is today?"

Beep-beep toilet time

We knew for months that we needed to potty train Peanut. She was interested and probably ready, but with a long road trip and all the chaos of the holidays, we decided to wait until January. And even then, there were a few days that I was wondering if it was ever going to happen.

Peanut has an independent streak that is a bit fiercer and edgier than Jellybean will ever likely muster. Everything has to be HER idea, and it should be done HER way. Not much different than many 2-year-olds, but with Peanut, there is no give.

The first couple days we were focusing on potty training, she just wasn't getting it. We used cotton training pants just like we did with Jellybean. Being wet didn't bother her in the least. I took the same approach we did with Jellybean: setting a timer every 30 minutes, which meant it was "toilet time." We managed to get the #2 in the toilet every time (mostly luck and persistence on our part), but the #1 was not happening. She didn't really cop an attitude, just demonstrated with her behavior that it wasn't going to be easy. But I wasn't going back. This was going to happen.

Sure enough, just like in her book, she woke up one day and stayed dry all day. Then the next day. And then the next day. And that was it. She heard that timer, announced, "Beep-beep toilet time!" and went running to the bathroom. It was HER idea now, and she was going to do it right. So right, in fact, that 2 weeks into it, she was staying dry every night and nap (good thing I bought about a million Pull-Ups, whoops!).

So, we are done with diapers! And, as soon as Jellybean can stay dry at night, we'll be done with Pull-Ups too. I continue to marvel at how this whole growing-up thing works.