Shivering with Antici.....pation (tm)

It's the first week of December! Christmas shopping and decorating are in full swing, tasty goodies are being baked, jolly music is playing, gifts are getting wrapped. Children young and old are eagerly looking forward to the big event, with excitement that grows day by day.

Oh, at everyone else's house, I mean. At our house, something so big is going on that it has actually eclipsed The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (tm).

Want a hint? Okay, here it is. On November 25th, Chris and Gwen were stuck at home due to the snow. Chris went upstairs to make a work call and a few minutes later, he saw Gwen walking out of the upstairs bathroom with her pants around her ankles. Turns out our girl walked upstairs, pulled down her pants, sat on the potty and did her business, then walked into her room looking for a wipe to clean herself up. All with no help from Dada. This is a huge leap, and naturally, he praised her to the skies.

So the official announcement at last: we are going to potty-train Gwen. The planets are aligning and Signs of Readiness (tm) are cropping up everywhere. She has started asking about wearing her underwear instead of Pull-ups: she gets upset when she is wet. She stays dry longer and longer (though still not flawlessly) and is happy to use public toilets when we are out. A gracious friend gave me The Three Day Potty Training book, which she used with her son to great success - and I trust her and her mothering methods, so I know she would not use an approach that wasn't gentle, child-oriented, and loving.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be following the instructions in the book under the section "before you train", as well as gathering the supplies we will need for the three-day training blitz. ("Dear Santa: Gwen has been a very good girl this year, and would like 20-30 pairs of big-girl underwear.") Between Christmas and New Year's, I have 11 days off, and somewhere in there we are going to hole up in the house for three straight days, no outings, no phone calls, nothing that can distract us from Getting It Done (tm). (I am really hoping that the three days fall earlier in my vacation, rather than later, because something tells me I am going to need a break after that solid 72 hours of doing nothing but attend to my child's toileting needs.) I am excited about this method and about the independence that Gwen will gain from this. I'm also looking forward to how proud we will be of her through this process, and helping her to be proud of herself, too.

Oh. And Christmas. Yes, I'm looking forward to that, too. Fa-la-la, etc.