Where you gonna go, when you gotta go

The arrival of "National Turn On the Heat Day" has nicely coincided with "Begin Potty-Training Caroline Day."  (I realize that this sentence may have caused everyone except the grandmothers and other moms of 2 year olds to want to stop reading. I totally understand, sofeel free to click away without guilt.)  : )

One week in September I attempted to start potty-training, admittedly half-heartedly. It quickly became quite evident that neither Caroline nor I was ready, and I was quite happy to abort mission. I shared this experience with my friend Megan, who also lives in Asia and whose son is a week younger than Caro, to see what her potty-training plans were and to find out if she experienced the same feelings of ineptness, being the only mother in the neighborhood whose 2 year old still wore diapers. (I think I mentioned before that most Chinese begin potty-training their children as infants and are completely diaper-free by 6 months. They are also often wearing crotch-less pants which is another blog post altogether. Click here if you want to read more about how they do it.)  My friend wisely suggested that I wait until after National Turn On the Heat Day...that would not only give Caro a few more months of development but would also be a time when we were naturally indoors more since it's cold outside plus it would be warm enough inside so that she could go pantless and not freeze to death.

I decided to go with her advice, and it has worked out well since I have a week off of class this week due to a need to switch teachers.  Today is only Day 2, but I'm pretty committed to staying diaper-free during the daytime, even if it means that I am only training myself to take her to the potty more regularly. She did pretty well yesterday with only one accident, and I must say that this is one reason I'm happy that Chinese apartments have no carpet--it makes accidents much easier to clean up!

We've also had a fun song to go along with the experience since our copy of the new Slugs and Bugs album finally arrived this week.  The album happily has a potty-training song called "Where You Gonna Go." You can click here to listen to a sample.  The album also has a ton of other super-fun songs, most of which the girls could sing along with after just one listen. If you're looking for a great Christmas gift for a child in your life, this is a good one.  In addition to the silly songs that are trademark Slug and Bugs, the album also has some really precious songs with good spiritual insight, that helps even Mommies who are having hard days. 
(In my effort to find an online version of the potty song, I came upon Randall Goodgame's Slugs and Bugs blog. It is awesome, check it out.)