Mother's Day Gifts

Ava decided to give me an extra special mother's day gift this year - she gave up her naps, subsequently giving away what little sanity I have left as a mother. I returned the favor by insisting that she has to wear "big girl panties" again. In the picture to the left you see her sliding in her undies.

Ava was pretty much potty trained by last Halloween, but somehow along the way it became one big power struggle between us and we both gave up. She was physically capable of being potty trained, showed all the signs, and had done it fairly successfully for some time, but her will dictated otherwise. If she had a play date and her friend went potty, she'd go too. If I tried to get her to go, there was no way it was happening, so I did and said nothing about it for several months.

I approached it the same way I did before, wrapping up potty prizes, making a chart, letting her run around all day in her panties, trying to make it fun. So far we've been pretty successful and it's going much easier than before. The craziest thing is that instead of giving her candy, she'd rather have money! One of her potty prizes was a piggy bank that's a plush bear (so I guess I can't call it a piggy bank). I give her loose change that she puts in it for going potty. She calls it her money bear and carries it around with her all day long. When we go out and she wants a gumball or something, she pays for it with her own money. It's really sad when your child is old enough to be motivated by money and is still being potty trained, but hey, it's working for us.