For very obvious reasons, this post will not be accompanied by pictures.
Disclaimer: The recounting of the following events may contain toilet humor and real life situations. Nothing gross, but the entirety of this story takes place in the bathroom.
We (a term to be used liberally - mainly Dana with my occasional participation) have been potty training Elsie recently. It has largely been successful, but one particular day was particularly funny and inspiring to us, but most importantly, we considered it of the utmost importance to chronicle potentially embarrassing moments for our later use with Elsie.
On this particular afternoon, Elsie was playing with her Elmo doll when she told Dana that Elmo needed to go potty, so off she went with Elmo in tow into the bathroom. After a bit of rustling and a toilet flush, Dana went in to check on how things were going.
"Ok." said Elsie.
"You know," explains Dana, "as long as you're in there with Elmo, you can also use the potty if you need to since you're wearing your pull-ups."
"Oh, ok."
After a few minutes, we peeked in and Elsie was sitting on her potty with her pants and diapers at her ankles - 'reading' a book.
Fast forward 3 minutes.
FLUSH
"Daddy, can you please come in here?" Elsie asks.
When I get to the bathroom she is in the process of pulling out her step-stool to get up and wash her hands. Needless to say, we were THRILLED that she went to the bathroom on her own.
She then explained to me that she needs me to grab the towel off the rack so she could dry her hands after cleaning up. Once I gave it to her, it was pretty apparent that my usefulness was exhausted as she dismissed me with a, "um, excuse me daddy, but I need some privacy."
It's a pretty thankless job I tell ya.
