Potty Training, Day Nine

Potty training is a touchy subject. Parents who have chosen to wait longer before beginning to potty train their kids can go straight into defense mode when the subject comes up. Parents who have had raging success with potty training before age 2 can dismiss the real struggle that some kids and parents have. Let me be clear upfront: When to Potty Train Your Kid is not an issue of morality. If you’ve picked a different timeline than I have, I’m not judging you.

My goal in writing this is just to share my story. This is Potty Training 3.0. It looks a lot different from the 1.0 and 2.0 versions.

Feel free to use my story as a point of reference for the beginning of your own Potty Training Story, take comfort in commiserating with me on it, or simply roll your eyes at me for writing sooo manyyyy wordssss about tiny people’s #1 and #2. Reader’s choice….

Ode to the Balance Bike

Parents and grandparents of small-kids-who-don’t-know-how-to-ride-a-bike-yet, this post is for you. Here’s the punchline upfront: Buy that kid a balance bike!

We bought this balance bike when Miryam turned two. We’d heard and read about how it makes the transition to real bike riding pretty effortless. It was just the right size. I tried to help her learn to ride it a couple of times, but she wasn’t getting it, and I was getting frustrated, so it collected dust for a looooong time in various garages. We’ve moved twice between that birthday and this spring, when she finally took an interest in her three-years-old gift….