We had to get rid of our old sofa sectional recently. It had been a good and faithful friend for many years. We got it right after we got back from Chicago. The kids literally grew up on that sofa. It gave me a comfortable place to sleep when I was uber-pregnant, I timed my contractions (for Monkey) on it, and I nursed both babies on the chaise part of the sofa. And it became my bed when my poor hip joint couldn’t take side-sleeping anymore.

Eventually it began to show its well-used years. Mr. Prairie did something to the back cushion on his side; it became a misshapen lump only vaguely resembling a sofa cushion. I had to stomp it into submission whenever Nana came over, just so she could sit there. The seat cushion on my chaise first developed a rip in the fabric, then gradually the deeper layers of foam began to separate until it also got uncomfortable to sleep on.

My parents, bless their hearts, go through den furniture like nobody’s business. This latest time when my mom decided to redecorate her den, she informed me that we needed her old sofa and comfy chair with ottoman. The chair and ottoman is pretty comfy even though it is totally not my style and will be replaced as soon as we get around to it, but the sofa, while rather innocuous looking, is evil.

It hurts my hip, my back, and my sense of aesthetics. It will be replaced as soon as humanly possible. In the meantime, I have dubbed it the Widow-maker.

I think it’s trying to kill me.

As parents, we find ourselves saying things that, when child-free, we never imagined that we would say. Things like, “Don’t spit on the window, that’s gross!” “No, you can’t have cotton candy for dinner.” “Don’t eat crayons.” and the parental standard, “Because I said so, that’s why.” But the one thing I find myself saying the most, or asking rather, is: “Why are you naked?”

And I found myself asking just that question this morning, early this morning. I woke up at about 4:30 this morning, only three hours after I got to sleep. You see, I had made the mistake of eating after I got home from work, then taking an allergy pill, and then conking out on the Widow-maker (the sofa). At 4:30 on this ill-fated morning, I woke with the worst heartburn. I got up, moved over to the comfy chair and tried, in vain, to go back to sleep. (I can’t sleep on our bed right now, the mattress is more uncomfortable than the Widow-maker.) Monkey came stumbling in at about 6 a.m., grumbled a bit, and fell back asleep on the sofa.

At 6:30 am, I was just starting to doze off again when Pumpkin put in an appearance, wrapped in her blanket. She wasn’t interested in going back to sleep, she wanted to play. I got her a cereal bar, turned on some cartoons, told her to be quiet, and went back to sleep. Some time later, I woke up and looked over at my little blanket-wrapped sweetie. The blanket wasn’t completely wrapped around her and I could tell she was no longer wearing her shirt.

“Why are you naked?” I asked for about the millionth time. “That because I took off my clothes,” she answered. (I was a little shocked, it’s mostly been rhetorical until this point.)

Turns out she was starkers; I gotta remember to wash that blanket. So I stumbled around, found some mismatched shorts and shirt for her, and managed to put the shirt on top and the shorts on bottom. I still can’t tell if she just likes to be au naturel or if she likes to change clothes a lot. After we got home from Mayfest today, she decided that her current dress just wouldn’t do. She stripped down and demanded a new shirt. Right now she’s on outfit-of-the-day number 4 (if you count the blanket-toga).

This is why I can’t get ahead on the laundry.

Before you freak out and start checking local hospitals to find out where to send flowers, I’m perfectly fine and it wasn’t as serious as it sounds. Let me just state for the record that people drive way too fast and/or recklessly in our neighborhood, especially in front of the school.

I had just collected Monkey from school and we were walking back to the car when one of his friends hollered at him and asked us to follow him to his house, so I answered back that we had to go to the store. We had just reached the front of the car and I was trying to get Monkey to his door safely (thank goodness I was walking to the outside) when something bumped into my elbow. I thought somebody was trying to get my attention, turned out to be the driver’s side mirror of a car! He got my attention alright, but apparently I didn’t get his. He kept driving.

I am extraordinarily lucky that it was not more serious. It didn’t really hurt that much, just made my arm felt like I’d bumped my funny bone, hard. Well, my arm felt funny and I was trying to shake it off and making a pained face when Mr. Prairie asked my why I hadn’t screamed when the guy hit me. I’ll tell you why, because being hit by a car is just such a stunning experience that I was shocked into silence. Even more shocking, the guy just kept driving. Mr. Prairie said he did slow down a bit, but since I wasn’t lying in a bloody, mangle heap in the road, he just kept driving.

Then Mr. Prairie asks me, “Is it that serious?” And I answered, “No, it just feels like when you bump your elbow really hard, because, you know, A CAR HIT ME!” And he just kept driving. If I’d had the foresight to plan for the day when I was bumped by a car,  I would’ve banged on the car Midnight Cowboy-style and yelled, “I’m walkin’ here!” But alas, who plans to be HIT BY A CAR?!

Monkey, who was holding my other hand when the guy hit me with his car, and did I mention, just kept driving, seemed to be unaffected. We proceeded to the grocery store and got our shopping done. (One child per cart, trust me on this one!) When we were done and loading up the Prairie Family Truckster, Monkey spotted a semi  backing up to the store’s loading dock. It was backing up and beeping and he panicked. He was sure the truck would hit us all (it was quite a ways away), so he hurled himself out of the cart and demanded that we all get in the car. RIGHT NOW!!!!

Even though I wasn’t really hurt, he had just seen his mama get hit by a car. He’s way more sensitive than he lets on. Monkey did not calm down until I was safely in the car.

By the way, I plan to lead every conversation with, “I got hit by a car,” at least for a couple of days.

Baby oil removes “permanent” marker marks from skin. How did I come to acquire this little tidbit of knowledge, you may ask? Because I have a 3, soon to be 4, year old, that’s how.

Yesterday morning, Pumpkin somehow managed to access my purse, which was hanging on a rather high coat rack. Seems the child has gotten taller since we hung the pegs on the wall, imagine that. Anyway, the little pickpocket found one of my Sharpies, lucky for all of us she found the pink one and not the black one.

I didn’t find out about the theft until I noticed the silence. That eerie silence that occasionally descends upon the House; the kind of silence you hear in old Westerns when the notorious gunfighter walks into the saloon; the kind of silence that usually only exists in libraries or funeral parlors; the kind of silence that always means a kid is up to no good. Mr. Prairie walked in and asked what Pumpkin was doing and I decided that I should find out. Together, we opened her door and peered in just as she threw something under a box, spun around, and yelled, “Nothing!”

When Pumpkin yells “Nothing!” you can bet that it’s something, and it’s never a good something. She had stashed my pink Sharpie under the box, after liberally applying said marker to her hands, arms, lips (just like lipstick!), and bellybutton. We didn’t immediately discover the bellybutton thing. Mr. Prairie called out from the back of the House, “Check her bellybutton!” I did, and she had. Why she is so fascinated with coloring in her bellybutton I will never know, but this not the first time she’s done it so it wasn’t exactly a surprise.

Getting the stuff off of her was quite a chore. Scrubbing didn’t work, fingernail polish remover didn’t work, lotion didn’t work. I was down to my last idea so I gave it a whirl. So if anyone ever asks you how to remove Sharpie marks from toddlers, tell them to try baby oil.

Then just a couple of hours later, while we were shopping in Big Warehouse Club, we got a call from Monkey’s school. The school nurse called and left me a voicemail telling me that he had been in an accident at recess. She said that his lip was split and swollen, but that he had already returned to class.

Monkey looked like the losing side in a prize fight. His sweet little upper lip was very swollen and red and there was blood on his clothes. He told us that he fell face first on the blacktop while engaged in a rousing game of something he and his little cronies call “Midnight Joker.” I’ve never been able to determine the exact rules of “Midnight Joker,” but it seems to involve climbing to the top of the tallest piece of playground equipment, throwing oneself off of it, and yelling, “I’m the midnight joker!” I hate that game. And now I’m mad at that song.

So I started a new tradition, when a child get hurt in school, he or she gets special treat. I took him to the store and let him pick out some candy.

This morning the last thing I said to Monkey when I dropped him off at his classroom was, “Be careful!” Apparently he didn’t listen.

When I picked him up this afternoon his teacher greets me with, “You are never going to guess what happened today. Monkey tripped in the classroom today, got a big scratch under his eye, and hurt his lip in a different spot!”

Today, I bought him some ice cream. If he does this for a third day in a row I’ll assume he’s doing it for the snacks.

Wow. Has it really been that long since I last posted? I guess it has. Well, I’m still here and Oklahoma’s weather is still weird.

Today I woke to the sound of thunder. Expecting to see heavy rain to accompany that thunder, I was quite surprised to see, not rain, but snow. As a native Oklahoman I have experienced my share of odd weather (and then some), but thunder and snow is a new one for me.

The thunder continued to rumble occasionally while the snow fell thick and fast. It was a rather aggressive snowfall, not some much drifting gracefully to earth as it was throwing itself at the ground. After several hours of relentless falling, the snow was several inches deep and showed no sign of abating. Our plans for grocery shopping and general running-around had to be sacrificed upon the altar of practicality.

So we enjoyed a rare weekend day of not going anywhere. Of course I still had to go to work in the evening, but for most of the day we just took it easy. We did rustle up hats and coats and gloves and mittens for everyone so we could all go play in the snow.

We had a good time throwing snowballs at each other and building the world’s most pathetic snowmen. Really, calling them snowmen is giving them too much credit, they were more like mounds of packed snow with vaguely ball-shaped snow lumps on top. And then the big snowman met a sad fate as he was reclaimed by Monkey to make more snowballs.

Pumpkin made snow angels and I tried to kick the snow out from behind the car. You see, we don’t own a snow shovel, I don’t even know anyone who owns a snow shovel. This is Oklahoma and we don’t usually get these kinds of snowfalls. And the garage of the Burning Prairie is just too small to store a snow shovel that will see action about once every three to five years, if that.

The last time it snowed Monkey and Pumpkin didn’t get to play outside. The snow wasn’t as deep as it is today but it was sitting on a sheet of ice and it was much too cold to venture out. So they were thrilled to play in the snow today. Next time maybe I’ll plan ahead enough to bring a camera so everyone can see my babies playing in the snow. But this time I was having too much fun dodging snowballs and throwing some of my own to take pictures. You’ll just have to wait three to five years for the next big snow to come through.

Oh yeah, it’s supposed to get up to 54 degrees  on Sunday afternoon. Gotta love that wild, weird, and wonderful Oklahoma weather!

Well, runny nose season is in full-swing at the House. At this very moment, I am the only person here who isn’t coughing, sneezing, snorting, dripping, or sniffing. Of course this could change very rapidly and then I could make my own contribution to the nasal cacophony around here.

Spring and fall are usually my noisiest seasons. I am allergic to trees (especially cottonwood, the devil’s tree), grass, ragweed, cats, mold spores, and some flowers. These allergies and their loathsome effects have been my seasonal companions for better than thirty years, so for portions of the year, my nose hates me. I also have a very sensitive sense of smell, I can smell things that no one else can. My nose has saved us from food poisoning several times. Maybe it’s my super-power, Super Schnauze to the rescue! My nose is also generally sensitive, I hate to have it touched, so naturally Mr. Prairie loves to poke at my nose.

One of the worst things I have ever had to do to treat my allergies involved using those nasal inhalers that are so popular now. It feels bad and leaves a funny taste in my mouth. But apparently there are some people who have way more fun with their noses than I. Which reminds me of my sister.

I don’t believe I have ever written extensively about my sister, but I really should, she’s hilarious! I will call her “Sissy” to preserve whatever tattered shreds of her dignity remain after she reads this story. Sissy is younger than me by six years, she’s married to Fireman and has two kids, my 14-year old nephew who I’ll just call Nephew because he’s at that easily embarrassed age, and my 6-year old niece I’ll call Flower.

Since there are six years between us, there were large swathes of our lives during which we were at vastly different stages and had nothing in common except shared ancestry. And to tell the truth, early on I was bitterly resentful of her mere presence in my life. I was happy, content, I had mom and dad to myself, and along comes this loud, smelly interloper who ruint everything! Things have become so much clearer now that I have two children, I understand my son’s feelings towards his sister, because I went through the same thing, which in turn has caused me to finally see and understand some of my own motivations and feelings way back then.

All very nice, Prairie, but what pray-tell is the point, you may ask? What does all this stuff about motivations have to with noses and your sister, you wonder? Wonder no longer. My sister shoved peas and shoe-string potatoes up her nose.

Of course she was four years old at the time, and the peas and shoe-string potatoes were two different nasal incursion incidents. I don’t know which was first, peas or potatoes, but the potatoes were nowhere near as entertaining as the peas so I won’t dwell on them. But I remember the pea-insertion incident like it happened yesterday.

My mom usually made very basic, meat-potatoes-vegetable dinners and she had a particular fondness for La Seur peas. Sissy did not share that fondness, and one evening she came up with a unique solution to the pea problem. Something, anything, had to be done with the accursed peas. Clearly they had to go, but where? Her nose seemed like the obvious hiding place. Because she was only four years old, Sissy didn’t really think through all the possible ramifications of shoving peas up her nose. At ten years old, I just mostly thought it was funny.

There was my little sister, with her big blue eyes and cherubic golden curls, furtively pushing peas up her nose. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen and still reduces me to tear-inducing laughter to this very day. I imagined the peas made a little vacuum sound as they each disappeared into her pert, little nose. Fwoop, there goes a pea, fwoop, and another! About five or six peas into this bizarre little ritual my mother finally noticed what was happening under her nose, or under my sister’s nose, rather.

And because it was her job to do so, my mother freaked out. After her usual operatic “NOOOOO!” mom got right to business. She and Dad held Sissy’s head immobile and used tweezers to remove the offending vegetables from her nose. Luckily they were able to get them all or we would have taken a little trip to the emergency room, which would’ve mortified my mother. Nothing embarrassed my mother more than taking imperfect children out in public, too bad she had human children; and peas up the nose definitely qualified as imperfect.

When they finally got around to questioning me about why I didn’t immediately report such atrocious behavior I was stumped for an answer. I’m sure I just shrugged and uttered the universal answer of busted kids, “I dunno.” I know now. At 10, I didn’t have the sophistication to understand that Sissy couldn’t be held to the standards to which I was held. And I resented her blonde perfection at a desperately awkward stage in my life. For just a little while negative attention was deflected from me and onto her, it was strangely gratifying to see her being scolded instead of “polishing her halo” as I once told my mom. But the overriding reason why I just sat and watched is because it was darn funny! It never occurred to me at the time that my mother might not think it was funny, too.

Today I discovered that the propensity for shoving stuff up one’s nose might possibly have a genetic component. Pumpkin has had a runny nose for about two weeks which developed into another ear infection, number two in as many months. We’ve been to the doctor, gotten her medicine, and indulged most of her whimsies, but she’s still pretty whiny.

We were relaxing together on the couch, I was perusing a blog I frequent and Pumpkin was playing with her “Yo Dabba Dabba” guys. She sprang to her feet, looked at me, flapped her hands and started yelling, “I CAN’T BREATHE!!!! I CAN’T BREATHE!!!!” Thinking she just needed to wipe her nose, I handed her a tissue. She looked at me, took her tissue, then she promptly tore a little piece off and tried to shove it up her nose. Because it is my job to do so, I freaked. After my own operatic “NOOOO!!!”, I pulled her in front of a window and tilted her head back. There were little pieces of tissue shoved up each nostril; she had managed this while sitting literally right under my nose!

So I put her on the couch and pulled the little tissue pieces out of her nose, very carefully. I thought that I had stopped her before she had managed to put much in there. I was wrong. Her nose was like a clown car–I would pull out what I thought was the last piece and there would be another piece right behind it! Finally I got the last, gruesome piece out of her nose. Then I went around and put all the tissue boxes up on tall windowsills and the like.

I’d say what I normally say when faced with the weirder aspects of parenting, “I swear this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” but I’ve seen it happen to someone else with my own two eyes. And right under our noses.

As you may know I have a love/hate relationship with children’s TV programming. My daughter watches the “valuable lesson”-type shows on Sprout, Noggin, and Nick Jr. and she seems to enjoy most of them. And as I think that everyone needs a little harmless, mindless diversion occasionally, I put Boomerang on at least once a day. She likes some of the cartoons I grew up with, like Scooby Doo, Where Are You, Yogi Bear, and Popeye, and Tom and Jerry and Pink Panther are so loved that we bought them on DVD so we can watch them whenever we want. And by we I mean Pumpkin. Just yesterday, during a game of involuntary Ring Around the Rosy instigated by her brother, I heard her yell, “Jane! Get me off this crazy thing!” I’m so proud that my 3-year old can quote the classics!

But before school and in the evenings, we watch some shows that my son prefers. We are a Pokemon family and watch Pokemon: Battle Dimension before school. In the evenings, we watch iCarly which I highly recommend as truly funny and well-written and… I have sat here for several minutes trying to figure how to admit that I watch this show and find it both ridiculous and hilarious, much to my chagrin, so I’ll just quit hemming and hawing and spit it out, I’ll just own up to it, I’ll cop to it, I’ll bite the bullet, I’ll…. Oh for heaven’s sake, it’s Spongebob Squarepants. There, I said it.

We sing the song to each other, do our impressions of the characters, and try to guess who does the various voices. Mermaid Man is voiced by Ernest Borgnine and Barnacle Boy is done by Tim Conway. Patrick Star is voiced by exactly the actor I thought, Bill Fagerbakke from Coach and The Stand. M-O-O-N, that spells Patrick! The one voice that threw me for a loop was that for Mr. Krabs. Mr. Krabs is The Kurgan, from Highlander. Clancy Brown has quite an impressive list of rolls on IMDB, including a lot of voice-over work. But when you think about him, isn’t The Kurgan the first thing that springs to mind? Now, on top of hearing Mr. Krabs say, “I’ll save you, money!” and laugh, “Ack, ack, ack, ack, ack, ack, ack,” I’ll also picture The Kurgan ripping the top off a car and saying, “Mom.”

Now there’s some cognitive dissonance for ya!

The economic stimulus is going into the Senate, and it is a dreary certainty that republican know-nothings will make their usual bleatings about tax cuts. Of course the tax cuts republicans venerate are the ones designed to reward large corporations for exporting our jobs overseas and to make sure that those who can afford to consume the most resources (gas for their Hummers, wasted energy in their McMansions, fat bonuses for driving their companies into the ground) bear the least financial responsibility for the society in which they consume those resources.

And the average conservative on the street marches in lock-step with these ideas even to his or her own detriment! When corporations are rewarded with ridiculously low tax obligations do they take those savings to reinvest in American jobs? Not so far. So excuse me if I don’t trust in the better natures of these companies and those who run them. We have seen companies approach the federal government like some kind of Oliver Twist, “Please, sirs, may we have the tax-payers’ money so we can stay in business and keep employing those tax-payers?” And then we hear that the bailout money has gone to provide fat bonuses to the very people most responsible for their companies’ troubles!

I recently un-friended someone on Facebook for the kind of subtle racism-laden “joke” that he can later claim, “What? It was about my dog. You liberals just can’t take a joke! I hate this PC crap.” Before I un-friended him he repeated the classist, racist, and damnable lie that he makes more money than poor people because he works harder and therefore shouldn’t have to pay a higher percentage of taxes than those poor people. And this person claims to be a christian. I happen to think it isn’t very christian to expect that someone who earns a fraction of what you do should be required to pay the same percentage of taxes as you. What is an inconvenience for someone who makes 100K a year is an unbearable burden for someone who makes 20K or less per year. Your decision to buy a new car or not this year becomes a “choice” between paying for food, medications, or shoes for the children. And a christian is ok with this?!

So, let’s talk about why no one should grouse about paying taxes. Taxes are the dues we pay to live in a civilized society. Taxes are what we pay so we can get from point A to point B without paying usage fees to every property owner we pass. Taxes are the price we pay for the privilege of interacting with the vast majority of US citizens who are literate even though their parents couldn’t afford private schools. Taxes are what make our government function for the greater good of the people, and that is, full stop, a good thing. Some examples of what can happen when government doesn’t function for the people anymore: anarchy, fascism, oppression, violent revolution.

I don’t mind paying the taxes necessary to functioning in the modern world so I’m going to put forth some ideas for those of you who like to whine about taxes, bearing in mind that what we pay for in taxes belongs to each of us.

Get off of my roads. State highway systems, bought and paid for with the help of my tax dollars. Ditto on the Interstate highway system. Hope you don’t have any trouble negotiating on surface streets and toll roads to do all of your traveling .

Take your children out of my schools. Oh, I realize that some of you already have. Incidentally, if your religion can’t survive your children being taught evolution then it isn’t much of a religion. And even if you manage to send your kids to private schools or homeschool them, you and they will still be forced to function in the world with people who went to public schools. Isn’t it in your (and your kids’) best interest to make sure people (like me) coming out of public schools are literate and competent. Don’t you want your surgeon and your pilot and your bus driver to be able to read and think critically?

Hope you are never the victim of a crime, because all of those tax-payer supported police officers and FBI agents? They work for me.

Better invest in a sprinkler system for your house and buy lots of fire extinguishers, because that thoroughly socialist concept known as a fire department? Yep, mine.

Wouldn’t want you patronizing the library, what with all that tax money being “wasted” there.

Are your children prepared to care for you in your dotage? I assume you invested all of your retirement savings in the stock market because of your faith in the free market system. Well, we’ve seen what has happened there, haven’t we? And since you are so opposed to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, I know you won’t miss that safety net.

And when all the rest of us decide that we are ready for a single-payer healthcare system because we don’t mind getting beneficial things for our taxes, you can just sit that one out.

I hope you are never flooded out, FEMA and the National Guard? You guessed it, they’re mine.

So unless you decide to chuck it all, move to a remote mountain cabin where you can scratch a barely subsistence-level existence out of the soil, and never burden polite society with your anti-tax, anti-government, anti-poor, anti-people, anti-children, anti-elderly, anti-knowledge, anti-safety, anti-health, nutty blatherings then you are politely invited to keep your poorly thought-out opinions to yourself.

But if you enjoy NOT living in a third-world (now politely called “developing”) country, then pony up. You have to pay your share, just like everybody else. And if your share is larger because your income is larger, then consider yourself blessed and dig out your wallet.

The other night, after I got home from work, Mr. Prairie and I watched “Making Over America With Trinny and Susannah.” There are no words for how much I love them. Trinny and Susannah are bold and funny and are apparently bringing their brand of makeover to the U.S. While I often feel that “makeover” shows are all about sucking every ounce of individuality out of people and making them adhere to a socially acceptable, conventional beauty, I don’t get that from T & S.

But I digress. In this special, they were making over a very cute mom/waitress from New Jersey. Off the clock, the New Jersey mom, Denise wore baggy boring clothes. She wanted something different for herself, but like all moms, put herself dead-last on her list of priorities. Denise didn’t think of herself as pretty, she referred to herself as “plain.” And she had body issues as a result of the changes that come along with having two children.

While listening to Denise disparage some body part or the other, Mr. Prairie exclaimed, “What is wrong with her?!” Then he looked at me and said, “You know, I blame Hugh Hefner. Because of him, men think they should have some perfect, airbrushed girl that doesn’t even exist in real life! And women wear themselves out trying to be like that!”

My jaw dropped, in a good way. “You get it! You actually get it!” Then I said, “You know what this makes you, don’t you? A feminist!” He laughed, because he’s been one all along.

The next night we watched another show, this one about a wedding. The bride’s father talked about the ceremony representing the passing of his authority over his daughter to her new husband, who then has authority over her. Hubby asked me, “What did I just hear?”

I answered, “You just heard a wedding being described as a transfer of property between the father of the bride and the new husband. And the property is the bride.”

He said, “That’s twisted.”

It would never have occurred to Mr. Prairie to ask my dad for permission to marry me, because I was a grown woman. We told my folks, together, that we were getting married. It never even entered our minds that my father had authority over me as an adult and that the non-existent authority could be transferred to someone else. I told the pastor that I wouldn’t promise to obey anybody and he’d better leave it out of the vows or there would be a very awkward silence in the ceremony. And I told him to leave that submission crap out, too. Marriage should be a partnership of equals who love each other, not a master-and-servant arrangement.

So I asked Hubby, “You weren’t laboring under the mistaken idea that you have any authority over me, were you?” He started laughing and said, “Are you kidding me?”

You see, he believes that marriage is a partnership of equals, too. Because he’s been a feminist all along!

OK, I guess I need to get this toddler potty-trained. She starts Pre-K in the fall and they won’t take her if she’s not potty-trained. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am putting out the call to all parents, especially anyone who has been through this with a girl, for any help you can give. I perfectly open to buying books, treats, prizes, special products, anything it takes. But I need some advice here, and possibly some consensus.

There are techniques and programs that people swear by, but I don’t know which one to try. This child does not seem interested in the least. I’ve tried to let her take the lead on this, but we’re getting down to the wire here.

What hasn’t worked? The potty chair she picked out all by herself, the potty ring that lets her be a big girl on the big potty, Hello Kitty underpants, promises of kitties or a puppy, and appeals to her better nature. The only thing I will not use? Candy or other foodstuffs as a reward.

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!