Potty trained at last, potty trained at last, thank God Almighty, potty trained at last.

I’m so sorry Dr. King. But seriously, when I finally realized that we would no longer be throwing out POUNDS of diapers, with their fecal matter, plastic, cotton and that weird gel stuff in the middle, it was pure elation. It was a long road, but Hannah is finally potty trained.

True to form, my darling little girl was stubborn for almost a year. She peed on the floor countless times, completely unconcerned that a) her pants were wet, b) the carpet was wet and c) her daddy was huddled, shaking in the corner with suppressed frustration, checkbook in hand, ready to call the carpet cleaners again. Kids are jerks. I was becoming increasingly belligerent with smug strangers clucking about the fact that she still wore diapers, then passing on useless advice about how easily they potty trained their youngsters. I haven’t had to deal with much unsolicited parenting advice from strangers – apart from the stranger who wanted to give an infant Hannah a cough drop – until potty training. All of a sudden, even 50 year old bachelors and feckless teenagers had opinions.  So I did what any self-respecting mother would do: I bought chocolates and strawberry shortcake panties. Did those bribes work? No.

Meanwhile, Hannah had become fascinated with that absolute fucking scourge of childhood – the princess faze. I loathe the princesses. I loathe Disney. I loathe the countless stories wherein a beautiful princess pines for a saviour and is swept off her feet by some simple minded prince with impossibly wide shoulders, and is happily forgotten to a lifetime consisting of nothing more than marriage to a despot of some backwards slave-state where she can grow up, pop out heirs, and studiously try to forget the magic of her youth. Am I cynical? Maybe. But call me crazy, I want more for my daughter. I want better role models than that. But Hannah goes to a dayhome full of girls, so, every day, I’d pick her up, peel the princess costume off her, and take her home to our much less magical house.

Meanwhile, we struggled along with the potty training, which remained unsuccessful. We had bought a new carpet and Brian’s blood pressure was nearing danger levels. The unsolicited parenting advice on potty training really boiled down to one technique: smart bribery. Chocolate wasn’t a strong enough incentive, so desperation overcame my staunch moral objection to the princesses and I buckled. Friends, I bought her a princess dress and crown.

It wasn’t half an hour before she started using the potty and hasn’t looked back. I told you, kids are jerks.

The great part of this story is that on the following Monday I arrived at work, completely elated. I felt like the most successful parent ever, and was managing to laugh off my loss to the princess craze. I was telling a coworker the story when she interrupted me: “Carla, HOW can you hate the princesses?” I told her all about how I wanted more dynamic and varied feminine role models for Hannah, female role models of all ages who could do a variety of things rather than pine for husbands. I felt certain that Maggie, a dynamic woman who runs an academic department and helped reform education in Alberta, would agree with me. Instead, she told me all about her five girls, one of whom grew up a princess, and who could stare at herself in the mirror for hours, admiring her beautiful dresses and crowns. This little girl grew up to be a dynamic and fascinating woman, just like her mama. “Relax,” she said. “YOU are her feminine role model.”

It’s now Christmas. It’s cold outside, and Hannah’s imagination transforms the indoors into worlds beyond my dreams. So Santa, knowing what she loves, is going to bring her, besides all that educational crap her mama likes, a trunk full of dresses and crowns.