"I've got a turtle head poking out."

We now return the the saga of trying to get my daughter to successfully eliminate in the toilet.

My daughter has finally mastered urinating in the toilet/potty to some degree. She still needs reminding when I see her doing the pee-pee dance or digging at herself - always attractive in public - but the vast majority of the time she stays dry. Our next hurdle? Poop. After conquering her anxiety over letting her pee fall into a vessel, my middle one now has anxiety over pooping in the potty - to the point where she will come up and ask me for a diaper when she has to take a dump. Which is uber-fun to change afterwards, as previously discussed, as they are full sized craps with the stink to match. God forbid I express my displeasure at having to deal with said dookie as she will tell me, as I hold her legs up over her head to scrape turd off her butt with the twelfth in a succession of wipes, "Don't make a bad face, Mommy. Be happy." I'll be happy when I no longer have to handle this toxic waste, thanks.

Last weekend, it seemed there might a light at the end of the tunnel. I was sitting in the living room as hubby was putting the girls to bed when I see him and #2 (no pun intended) emerge from their room, at which point my daughter tells my she "has to go poop". I try to contain my excitement and stay on the couch as I hear her and hubby go into the bathroom and he commences his one hundred and second hopeful reading of Once Upon a Potty. Moments later I hear him say, quietly, as she does not like fanfare, "I'm so proud of you!" Can it really be? It could. She had pooped! Huzzah! My husband said he even got a little teary-eyed.

Our excitement was short lived. The next day she asked me for a diaper when she had to take her post-dinner dump and despite my gentle suggestions she use the facilities - and by this I did not mean the book corner of the playroom - she screamed, "Noooo!" Oh well.

So imagine my surprise yesterday when she tells me she has to poop and when I make my obligatory inquiry as to potty or toilet she chooses - TOILET! We run upstairs, sit down and after a few minutes of reading she says, "Actually I don't have to go." Later, after playing for a bit she tells me again she has to go again. Back to the bathroom. Again, she doesn't have to, actually. We did this about fifteen more times with the sittings decreasing in duration despite my efforts to lengthen them by allowing her to bring every toy in the house into the can with her and I have begun hating Prudence and her damn potty and envying her mother for the ease with which her frizzy-haired offspring managed to potty train. I bring the potty in to the playroom thinking the walk to the john is interrupting her flow - no dice. I am also becoming concerned because now she's telling me her tummy hurts. Great, I am envisioning this going on for hours and ending with laxatives and tears. I even offer her a diaper which she rejects, then accepts, three potty attempts later. At this point, we have been working on this dump for TWO hours. My whole day is revolving around it. I run between making lunch and the toilet, nursing the baby and the toilet, I just want this poop out and be done with it.

Twenty minutes later, I see #2 in the corner (the kid, not the fecal matter - not that I would have cared as long as she finally went) squatting and grunting. Then finally, finally, she tells me, "I done." Readers, I am embarrassed to tell you how happy I was about a crap. And when I tell you this was the turd of the century, I am not kidding. It was as big as my kid's head. I contemplated taking a picture for all of you, but I think that's too far, even for me.

So it's back to the drawing board in the deuce department. Just like everything else, my strong-willed middle child will do this when she's ready. I will try to remember The Day of the Turtle Head the next time I'm being told to be happy as I'm covered in feces since I really don't think I could go through that again.