Is peeing on the floor progress?

Yes. It is. We're going to say it is, anyway. Because when one is scared to pee anywhere but one's diaper, then peeing on the floor is progress because we have peed somewhere other than the diaper.

Zo's teachers put her in underwear (which was fairly uneventful, as she was quite proud of her new undies and eager to show them off) today after their mid-morning snack of moon doughnuts, as they didn't know what to expect and didn't want to ruin her birthday treat. Given that it was mid-morning, then, the child was able to hold it all. day. long.

Oh, boy.

She held it for most of the night, too. Getting antsy only near the end. She sat on the potty with no pants on, but refused to go. After awhile we plopped her in the tub for her "stand-up bath," (what the rest of us refer to as a shower), and that's when all hell broke loose. The running water and the warmth combined to be simply too much for the poor girl. She was miserable. We had the windows in the house open due to the unseasonably cool weather, and so I'm sure the neighbors were also able to partake of her misery.

We hung tight. Finished her bath and dried her off and tried to convince her to go on the potty. Nothin' doin'. So we went with the suggestion of her teacher. We handed her a diaper and said, "You can either put this on yourself, or you can go on the potty. Your choice." Then we walked away.

She wailed and screamed and I think she'd have dropped the f-bomb if she knew it. Poor thing.

She does know how to put on her own diaper - done it many times before - so it wasn't like we were leaving her in a lurch. It's just that when you've got to pee so bad you're seeing yellow, that's pretty much all you can concentrate on. You simply cannot portion off another part of your brain to handle something as complex as self-diapering.

We stuck to our guns. Or rather, I stuck to my guns as most of this was addressed to me. M patted me on the arm, whispering, "Stay strong." He's a good man, M. I put some things away, retrieved my computer bag from the car, cleaned up the bath, all with a screaming banshee on my heels.

Finally, I wound up back in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub and cajoling her to come back in and sit on the potty. That's when, standing in the hallway outside the bathroom with a diaper half on, she began to lose it. Literally. "I'm...I'm...I'm leaking!" she shrieked.

"It's okay, sweetie! It's okay! Let it go!" She did. M looked horrified at the liquid on the floor, and then gamely went to get paper towels and the kitchen disinfectant. What a trooper. Zoe looked relieved.

I picked Zozer up and hosed her down in the tub, and we talked about how, wonder of all wonders, it's okay to go pee without a diaper. Look at that. Didn't even hurt or anything. In fact, it kinda tickled. She likened it to warm bathwater or a swimming pool. Yup. Any positive associations are good, so we went with it.

The rest of the night was considerably calmer, and we talked about how cool it is that we learned that it's okay to go pee without a diaper.

Baby steps. Tomorrow is another day. We'll get there.

Thanks to everyone who is keeping tabs on our potty progress, and those of you who are cheering at every little step forward.