Perhaps a litter box is the answer?

How goes the potty training? Well, there are two distinct way of looking at it.

On one hand, it is going almost perfectly. Lucy never wets herself. We were out and about all morning, and worrying about whether she might wet herself or not never even entered my mind.

On the other hand, however..... it's not going well at all. She poops her pants just about every afternoon. At first, she just held in it. As the days passed, however, I started to worry about her little belly so I began spiking her orange juice with laxitives. It worked like a charm...but not in the potty. We've had some pretty horrific messes, to put it mildly. I've now stopped the laxatives, but that has only translated into firmer loads in her underwear. In fact, Lucy is sitting in the bathroom at this very moment, as filthy as can be, while I am trying with all my might to compose myself here in the living room before confronting her.

The killer is that she is predictable in when these incidents occur, but not too predictable. It's never in the morning but while today she pooped her pants at 7:45, two days ago when we stopped by a friend's house, she had her "incident" at 3. There is never any warning - in fact, she seems to be capable of waiting and watching for a chance to sneak off privately. Usually, it happens when I am distracted by something - dinner is burning, or someone has an urgent problem with homework, or I run the garbage outside....I've tried keeping her on the potty for long periods of time - but thus far nothing has worked.

I am at the end of my rope, and I really do not know what to do about this except ride it out, and hope that she eventually gets it.

So, there we are. I have planned to go into Pittsburgh for a quick visit this Saturday, and as the days tick by my concern about this whole potty-dilemma increases. I hope my family appreciates the hell that I am potentially about to walk into.

I hate this stage. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

I really hate it.