Toilet Training: The Final Showdown

Did anyone check in with Satan recently? Or Old MacDonald? I believe that both hell has frozen over and pigs are flying because.....Yaakov earned his kippah! (That is the polite way of saying he did his business in the toilet.) I will spare you all, well, most, of the indelicate details, but suffice it to say, Yaakov had an overall excellent Day of Undies on Friday. We all went to the mall together and picked out his tzitzit and kippah (whoever thought that introducing toilet and tzitzit at the same time had a really sadistic sense of humor. We told Yaakov that tzitzit are only for shul.) He looks super adorable in his kippah, though. Ignore the fact that he's pants-less in the pics.

On Shabbat, we had one, um, "incident," but other than that, he was a great, dry, little boy. Sorry, a great, dry, BIG boy. ("Cuz I'm bigger," is Yaakov's response to pretty much anything - why he doesn't need to hold our hands when crossing the street, why he can use a glass cup, why he should have hot dogs for dinner...) We even went to shul in the morning and the park in the afternoon, without "incident." Today at gan, I was slightly nervous, as they informed me that if he "oseh cocky" in his underpants, they would have to put a diaper on him because it's unhygienic. I was fearful that all of our exhausting work during Boot Camp would be thrown out the window if there was even one "accidentbyaccident." (Can you believe it took me this long to come up with that one?) However, when I picked him up, they told me that he was dry all day! (Although he did inform them that he only does that particular piece of business at home.) He received a prize from his ganenet and was very very proud of himself. In fact, this afternoon, he said he needed to go to the bathroom. I got up to accompany him. When we got to the bathroom, he declared, "I need privacy, Mommy," and shut the door in my face, only allowing me in to turn on the sink after he was all done. He finally has his revenge, after all those times of Mommy, Daddy, and Ariella telling him we need privacy and shutting the door in his face. I'll bet it felt good! We are all praying that icicles should continue to grow in hell, if you get my drift.

Since we're on the topic of Yaakov, he has come up with a particularly brilliant piece of evasiveness: When I tell him to do something, he shoots back, "You're not my Daddy!" When Daddy tells him to do something, he replies, "You're not my Mommy!" Clever, no?

For Shabbat, we hosted Savta, Aunt Yael, Uncle Yossie, Hanani, and the elusive Uncle Jonathan. We were only missing Australian Leezy in our Rose Family Revival. A fun time was had by all. I think the highlight, at least for my children, was playing Torture the Beetle at the park. The Beetle was very relieved when it was dinner time.