The Princess and the Pee: Part Two

Whatever you do, don't read this out loud.  She'll hear you, and the spell could be broken.  I hesitate to even type it.

Remember when I told you about how long The Princess has been using diapers of some kind?

And then when I got all excited about our recent potty training efforts and the leaps and bounds our girl has made?

For the last solid week, The Princess has been prancing around her world sans training pants.  Did you hear that?  We're only using Pull-Ups at bedtime now.

She's using the potty consistently, and there's a glint in her eye that says she gets it.  She's proud. 

She even holds it when we're out for a walk at the state park.  For two hours. 

On Saturday, she had her first pit toilet experience (You know, the ones that are like glorified outhouses?  The ones that blow cold air up your butt and look like a 41-lb skinny minny of a thing could fall right in and never make it out?  Mm-hmm.  One of those.). 

She'd been riding in her stroller over some really rough terrain for a couple of miles.  We're talking straight up and down, bumpy stuff...yeah, that's right, we took her all-terrain stroller on the most difficult part of the trails.  And it was awesome.  I can still feel it in my shoulders.

We came up to a potty house, and The Hubbs and I could tell it was going to be pit toilets by the look of it.  The Princess, however, hadn't experienced these things before.  As I ran with her to the potty, she was getting visibly more excited by the moment.  Her bottom was dry, and she was getting antsy.

I opened the door, she took one look around and tried to bolt.  Fortunately, I caught her and was able to explain the situation.  She very cautiously walked around the toilet on all sides, casting suspicious glances into its fragrant depths before looking up at me with one last plea.

"I can tell you have to go potty, Princess," I told her.  "It's either this or have an accident in your pants, because it's going to be a while yet before we get back to the big building where we started."

She thought about this for only a moment before dropping her pants and hoisting her little bottom up onto the tall pot.  The look on her face as the cold air hit her bottom was priceless.

It took a few seconds, but she went.  And went.  And went.

Grinning from ear to ear, she hopped off the pot and pulled up her panties and pants.  She then proceeded to do laps around the toilet in an effort to figure out how to flush.  I did my best to explain that this kind of toilet doesn't have a flusher, and she listened intently.

Finally, she decided that closing the lid would have to do.  Leaving the little outhouse, we skipped back to her daddy, hand in hand, to complete our hike.

If my pride isn't evident through my words, maybe hers will be in this picture.

I am so unbelievably proud of this little girl, and I am once again in awe of how much the little things impact our lives every single day.

After nearly five and a half years of diapers and three to four years of potty training, we've arrived.  I can't imagine any other victory that could be this sweet.

Photoblog: State Park

Okay, so you may have figured out by now - smarties that you are - that I'm only posting once a week to this blog.  Between work, mommahood and the launch of Sam the Dragon, I think this is probably the most realistic goal I can set for myself at the moment.  This means I'll be posting no more than once per day between all of my various blogs.

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Saturday, September 8, we awoke to the first chilly morning we've had since the beginning of the summer.  It was 53 degrees outside our little yellow house, and the sky was a crisp, clear blue: perfect weather for walking around our local state park.

The Princess is now five years old, and she still absolutely adores riding in a stroller.  Earlier this year, we scrimped and saved until we could afford a three-wheeled all-terrain jogging stroller with a higher weight limit to accommodate her.  She is in lub with this thing.  We take family walks every day, and she seems to get the same calming effect from the stroller that she used to get from the horses at hippotherapy.  Something about the movement helps her find her center, and that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.  Priceless, really.

Along our walk at the state park, we spent a good deal of time with a pair of sandhill cranes, and we even met a little froggy friend on a lily pad by the lake.

After our long walk, we drove through the rest of the park and came across a wonderful, blessedly deserted playground, where we swung, climbed, slid and hung from monkey bars.  It was a sensory and texture wonderland and the perfect topper to a spectacular morning with my loves.