The Naked House

Toilet training in our house has become something like a dissertation. We work on it for hours every day, and every day we make a teensy bit of progress. It's also as expensive as an advanced degree. To help JieJie over the rough patches we have invested in a staggering array of potty accessories, including the travel "potette," the Kandoo deluxe toilet training kit complete with frog toilet flusher) and the tissue paper cutouts called Toilet Targets.

Then there is sibling rivalry, the great unharnessed natural resource that keeps JieJie on track for kindergarten. Every time JieJie wants to pee in a pull-up, I cruelly trot out MeiMei and lead her to the potty, which is a sure-fire way to send her older sister racing to beat her to it.

MeiMei has been toilet trained somewhat miraculously by Ping, our au pair from China who deserves her own headline. At 22 months, she is a potty chair pro, although she is frightened of the grownup potty, even when it has the kandoo frog throne on it.

JieJie does not think undies are comfortable, no matter how they appeal to her fashion sense. I know some day she will fall victim to elegant lingerie, but at this point panties don't feel right, so she pads them with a panty liner. She found these in the cabinet and when she asked about them, I told her ladies wear them sometimes in their panties. She immediately latched on tot his idea. After all, they make her undies feel more like diapers. ) Which brings us to Pods, another brilliant marketing scheme and major expenditure. A pod is essentially a very thick (think futon) sanitary napkin created for the purpose of -- you guessed it -- making undies feel like diapers.

Mostly, though, JieJie prefers to wear a diaper or nothing at all, and so the default uniform has been a top with no bottoms. The girls spend a lot of time with no pants on, and all of us have gotten used to bare bottoms.

All of us except the repairman who came to fix the icemaker. He managed to politely inquire as to the girls' ages without comment on their state of undress.