Yesterday morning, we watched and waited, waited and watched. Two days ago, Z didn’t poop, and she usually poops at least once a day. We were anxious for the next #2 event to happen. We knew it was going to happen soon.

All the pees throughout the day occurred without accident, except there was one time when she held it for too long and barely trickled in her underwear. Outside of this, we’re pretty confident that she’s confident about going pee.

We’ve been diligent with taking her to the toilet to poop for the past week, but we had no real way of knowing if she was catching on to the concept of pooping in the toilet. We’ve explained to her each time the function of the toilet; we’ve let her do the flushing; we’ve let her splash in the sink while washing her hands after every trip to the potty. We hope she’s grasping the process. She’s still not talking with many words her father and I understand, but I like to think she’s discussing potty training in addition to her opinions of the Pixar movies she’s probably already memorized.

This past week we’ve all managed to catch colds, and Z seems to have recovered the fastest. Yesterday she was playing and running around the apartment as usual, while Reilly and I committed to our plan to stay in our pajamas and watch movies and rest. And breathe through our mouths. And blow our noses every five minutes. I didn’t know if we’d be alert enough to run Z to the toilet to finish a #2.

So yesterday I was washing dishes and I walked out of the kitchen and saw Z going into the bathroom. I followed her and she walked toward the stool by the toilet. She looked at me, and I helped her onto the toilet.

After a few seconds of sitting on the toilet, she began to go. You know, go. The longish nuggets plopped into the toilet water, and I hugged Z and praised her while it was all happening. I called out to Reilly that she was doing it, she had pooped in the toilet without our having to take her there. Yay!

We cleaned up and flushed the toilet and washed our hands. We gave her a treat, and she continued being wonderful for the rest of the day. I can’t describe how proud we were of her in that moment, and we hope this continues, well, forever.