Prized

We went shopping yesterday for a prize for Chloe for completing the first row of her potty chart. She has done her business in the bathroom for ten days running. We only required one instance for her to get a sticker (a puffy foam star) on the chart, one a day, and additional instances have been rewarded with other, small stickers. She picked out a pink-and-purple latex caterpillar that I despise. She wanted a pink ball first and I was pleased, but then we lingered too long. Ah well. She likes it, and so does Eric from the way he keeps squeezing it to see its eyes bug out.

The next row of stars on the chart is for doing her business in the bathroom while either sitting on the potty or pantsless. Once we get through that row (maybe get the equally reprehensible latex frog?) she's got to be sitting on the potty and pantsless, and after that (there were no other squishy creatures, so she'll have to pick something else) she's got to be, you know, using the potty. Finally.

I don't actually believe this approach is going to work. She did remove her pants yesterday, though she got no extra sticker for it, so it's quite possible I'm wrong and that will be fine. But in my heart I fear she's going to lose interest in our increasingly esoteric requirements and play a game that makes more sense, her candy cane game for example. (Candyland. She enjoys bringing her "guys" "home" to the Candy Castle. And climbing the Chocolate Mountain.) Today, she got naked for her bath, then asked to have her diaper put back on so she could pee in it. We tried to coax her into just sitting on the potty. Moon sticker! Pull-Up! Big girl! But she stood there naked and would have none of it; she needed her diaper. I did at least get her to sit on my lap while she did it, in the hope that sitting down while doing business would get easier with practice.

So we'll see how this goes. If she never completes the rest of her chart at least I won't have to deal with the caterpillar acquiring any friends.