Bribery

We've been working on "potty training" Owen, which is basically a lie for several reasons.  First, Owen is perfectly capable of wearing underwear and sometimes he decides to do just that (sometimes for several days in a row, and then we get really excited that This Is Really IT, but alas...it isn't).  But, other times, he decides he would prefer a diaper.  One time, I asked him why he preferred to wear a diaper over underwear, and he said, "Well, Mama...it's....safe."  He's got a good point there.

Second, this summer we tried bribing Owen with cookies if he did anything of...ahem...significance on the potty.  But the truth is that I wanted cookies and I was probably going to bake them anyway, but positioning it as a reward for Owen made it less yeah-I'm totally-whipping-up-a-batch-of-chocolate-chip-cookies-from-scratch-because-I-feel-like-eating-some-of-the-raw-batter-followed-by-many-many-baked-cookies and more whoa-we-are-really-in-the-trenches-of-this-potty-training-thing-Official-Parenting-Business.  Dark chocolate and/or cookies (the marriage of the two is a beautiful, beautiful thing) were keeping my morale high, especially when sleep was scarce and things that required great effort and great patience were plentiful.

So here we are one afternoon after I surrendered to my chocolate craving Owen earned his reward:

Also: I learned that bribery doesn't work long term.  Owen quickly became immune to my sparkly and tantalizing offer of a cookie in exchange for potty business.  Fortunately, this was around the time that Leo started sleeping though the night, so I could return to a recreational level of cookie use.

Praises and cookies be.