Pavlov's Dogs

So, my littlest girl is nearly 2 1/2. Jena. Jena turned 2 at the end of October and for those of you who have seen me Mother up close, know that I am a strict Mother. I am loving, yes, but strict...in the sense that I have expectations. Reasonable ones, and of course they are dependent on the child, generally. Jena (and her big sister, Juliana) have been part of our family for 8 months.

Jena does some funny things. Cute as a button, ok? For instance. When the timer on the stove goes off, her eyes double in size and she starts repeating LOUDLY, "DONE! DONE! DONE! DONE!" So, in case we missed the incessant beeping, she is there to help out.

I am sure you have heard of Pavlov's Dogs. Ivan Pavlov did this cool and very well known experiment where he introduced a bell when dogs were being fed and they would salivate. Soon the dogs recognized that the bell meant they were being fed and they would salivate at the sound of it, without any food being present at all. This was quite a breakthrough in human conditioning at the time.

I have tried to work with Jena on potty training some but she is a pretty obstinate child. For instance something that is currently driving me mad: She says Juice with no "J" sound. Now, she is of Hispanic decent and yes, Hispanic people oftentimes will not pronounce the "J" as it is not present in their language, they naturally have a hard time with it. This is not the case with Jena She is more fluent in English than Spanish and was saying Juice just fine for several months. Also, she says EVERY OTHER word that begins with "J" including HER OWN NAME just fine, but refuses to say Juice. It is "Uice" every time now. I don't' know why, but it is seriously driving me batty right now. Wayne and I will even try to trick her, we will say every "J" word we can think of and have her repeat after us, and she does perfect except for for Juice-"uice" is all she will give. Rotten child!

Ok, anyway, to tie all this together, I decided it was time to be done with diapers today. at least during awake time. So I told her, no diapers! And she knows the rule (and of course I reexplained) that she gets a piece of candy if she goes potty on the toilet and I set the timer for every 30 minutes. So 3o minutes comes and eyes get big...beep, beep, beep. We tell her its time to go potty and we put her on the toilet making a big production of the whole thing. Nothing of course. The next 3 rounds went the same, but by the next round, when that beep went off, she took off running at full speed to the bathroom. She knew by them what it meant and she was ready! Hahahaha, so funny! Thats how the next few rounds went with a few successful rounds even! YEAH Jena! Then SHE got so good at the game, she started telling us she needed to go potty before the beep! Not a single accident today! I am so dang proud of her! We called her daddy and told him so he could celebrate with her too! What a good girl. I plan to keep her home from preschool this week to work on potty training so she really gets it down.

She will still need diapers for sleep-times of course. But she needs some success in her life! And she is ready to have some!

(It was also a lesson in just how stubborn she is, in 4 times, she learned what the beep is for, but absolutely refuses to say juice properly, and knows its making me nuts!)