One of my least favorite parenting tasks

Potty training.  It's an important time for any little girl and boy, as they attempt to ditch the diapers and become big kids by wearing underwear.  It means no more spending tons of money on diapers and wipes, and it means your trash doesn't stink to high heaven (well, at least for diaper reasons).  It means expanded possibilities for activities, since a lot of places don't want your kid if they're still in diapers because they don't want to deal with it.  This milestone means many things, but I'm going to be quite honest... making it happen is one of my least favorite parenting tasks.  I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that sentiment.

Anna started asking to use the potty a few months before she turned two.  I remember thinking "Awesome, she'll be one of those kids who potty trains easily and early!"  Yeah, it didn't happen like that.  She lost interest a few weeks later, and it was almost two years later before we were done with lots of daytime accidents and I could say she really was fully potty trained.

So I've kind of been dreading the day that we start this process with Lizzie.  Over the past few weeks, she has been asking to go to the potty.  She has, in fact, been begging to go.  And yesterday when we were at the library, she zeroed in on and picked out a book called "Done with Diapers".  I think she's giving me hints she might be ready.  So today she got to pick out underwear, and she has her own little potty.  So here we go!  Wish us luck! 

Pomp & Circumstance

Today was Anna's preschool graduation.  Yes, it is a fact that Anna hasn't attended preschool since the end of April.  And it is also a fact that I think graduations for preschoolers are a little silly, and mainly just opportunities for parents to take more pictures of their kids.  So why were we there?  Here's why.

Back in May we took Anna to a meet and greet at her elementary school, where she will be starting Kindergarten in the fall.  Afterwards we were back at the house and out of the blue she asked me, "When am I going to graduate?"  I thought she meant her high school graduation, so I started talking about how that was far in the future, and I got interrupted with a "No, no, no, no, Mommy.  From preschool!  Like Carter and Jameson did last year!"  Carter and Jameson are two of Anna's preschool friends who are a year older than she is.  And when I told her that she was already done with preschool, she got kind of upset.  So a few minutes later I was on the phone with the preschool director, asking if Anna could come back for graduation (and worried that it might have already happened).

As it turned out, they weren't doing their preschool graduation until June.  So this week I took Anna back to preschool twice for graduation practice, where she learned the songs and practiced lining up and walking in.  And today was her graduation.

In the end I'm glad we did it.  She got to see her little preschool friends again, got a graduation dog that her classmates signed, and now she feels like she's crossed the last hurdle before Kindergarten.  But I still think that all of that pomp and circumstance for four and five year olds is a little much :)