Who is training who here?

I am a glutton for punishment, I’ve decided.

Ellie is just so stinking smart. The other day when Blaine asked all the kids to back up while he was working and they were crowded around just a wee bit too close, she took one look at all the others obediently backing away a step or three and did an about face, and backed herself right up – onto Blaine’s bended knee as he worked on the ground in front of him.

She’s a smart one, I tell you.

She learns a new sign language sign the first time I show her. She learned “no” this week. She signed it right back to me moments after I signed it to her for the first time. She signs “Daddy” when she wants the board book “I love my Daddy because…” and signs “Momma” when she wants it counterpart, “I love my Mommy because…”. The girl just… gets it.

She begs to have her diaper changed every time she pees or poops.

She’s asked to go potty once before, and promptly peed on the toilet.

To top it all off, a good half of my cloth diapers, around for three kids now, are suddenly delaminating left and right. As in, they are leaking. Garbage. Done.

So, with Blaine in Florida for the week for work and me home with the kids and nothing but school and a little bit of fun with friends, I decided to potty train Miss Elliot Adelaide.

The first day, she successfully peed on the floor. Many times. She successfully pooped on the floor. Twice. She sat on the potty willingly, but did her business on the floor, thankyouverymuch.

Worth mentioning: I have hardwood and ceramic tile floors in every square inch of my house. Except the laundry room and garage. Those are concrete. The basement is gravel, but she doesn’t even know that room exists. As in, we’re good. Mess cleanup is easy… so long as you catch the pool before it runs to the center wall of the house. Because, well, the floors are perfectly slanted for center wall pooling. Intentional, to be sure.

Today, we tried again. We made KoolAid. The dear girl had never experienced such delights. We sat, she drank KoolAid, and we read every board book we own. Some we read more than once. We sang. It was quite the bonding day. As in, my backside and the hardwood floor bonded. It’s still complaining. (My backside. Not the floor.) One 16 oz cup of KoolAid later, Ellie nearly panicked when she pooped and peed in the potty chair while sitting next to me. We cheered, she gave me five, and she decided if we were cheering, clearly she’d done amazing things. She declared it all to be “eww” and went on her merry way. Then she peed on the floor, pooped in the potty, and peed on the floor a few more times. I’m not sure the day was a success, but it wasn’t a total failure either.

At any rate, my floors are cleaner than they’ve been in a very, very long time.

Tomorrow, we’re heading to the fair for the day. I’m doing precisely what I always say is the worst thing you can do. She’s going back in a diaper at the fair. Surely we’ve made some progress, and when we have another day at home, we can jump back in and finish this process. I just have to figure out how to convince her this is her idea. Then, we’ll be golden.

In other news, I pulled a gray hair from my head today. Kinky and wiry and sticking straight up from the middle of my head a good inch and a half, I can’t help but think it’s not mere coincidence that the thing made such a grand entry on such a day as this.