Breaking The Bank!

We're still struggling just a little bit with Little Miss and potty training. For the most part she's got it, and we don't have streaking issues anymore. However, she also firmly believes that every time she goes poop in the potty and not in her pants, she gets an animal back.

For those of you who've missed the earlier saga, Little Miss could care less about having soiled pants. She's just too busy doing other things. I eventually found that the only way to motivate her -- or at least the only way I could motivate her! -- was to take away two of her precious stuffed animals each time she had streaks. She earns back one when using the potty correctly (thus a streak and a subsequent poop don't quite cancel each other out, and yes she is that sneaky).

Since we tend to use the earning and removal of animals as our general discipline system -- and it's back to working normally again, thankfully -- we tend to always have a supply of animals on hand. Gotta love having a daughter filled with ummmm personality.

Mister Man sees what we do, and he's really supportive of his little sister. He claps and cheers and tells her how proud of her he is. In some ways, he really tries to be a third parent, which we don't encourage but is part of his personality.

My mom called yesterday and told me that Little Miss announced to her -- after doing two large poops in Grandma's potty -- that she got an animal back and that Mister Man was going to give her money, too! My mom wanted to see if I was aware of this.

Well, yeah. I was. Mister Man has recently decided that since we give her animals back, he was going to give her something of his. The only thing he could come up with (and no, he wasn't going to give away his precious Thomas trains) was money from his piggy bank.

Each individual poop earns a coin, regardless of denomination. He runs up to his room as fast as he can, hands me the piggy bank to open, and hands over the coins to Little Miss who then needs me to lift her up to put them into her piggy bank. It's all quite sweet. Or so I thought.

My mom brought up a really good point. Mister Man really hates messes. And smells. And really, he's paying Little Miss to not poop in her pants. And apparently, she can be bought. I hadn't thought of it in quite so crude of terms, but ... I think my mom is right.

Then again, the wee ones' piggy banks are the divided banks with the momma pig and three baby pigs. One for spending, one for saving, one for investing, and one for giving. Each time Mister Man opens the piggy bank, he makes sure that he takes coins only from the giving portion of the bank.

So really, it's all for charity. And charity is good, right? Right?