Tonight, in celebration....

...I bought my son underwear.

Certain events of the last few days left me with an unprecedented 2 hours of totally free time, and cause for celebration. The best use of it that I could think of? Going to the Disney store to buy my son Finding Nemo underwear.

A year ago during our summer vacation, he demanded to "go potty," and we thought "Yippee!" -- and that was the end of it. The potty I got for him last spring sits unused in the corner of the bathroom, generally with a book on it. All invitations to sit on the potty go unaffirmed -- I think he thinks that if he ignores me long enough, I'll give it up.

And that's the way he's been his whole life. If you try to force a change, it never goes well, but if you give him a little bit of time, he comes to it on his own. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm here to help, but HE's the one who's growing up.

So he has a half a dozen pairs of underwear now, and we've looked at them and the pictures of Nemo and Gill and Crush and Bruce, and the one pair that has little tiny blue sillouhette fish all over it, and so he knows that they're there. My job, now, is clearly to shut up about it and let him decide when he's ready to take the next big step toward growing up.

Oh, please, little boy -- not too fast.