Know Your Audience.

Rudy has been wearing undies for a couple of days. And Pull-Ups at naptime and at night. (This is the kind of breezy mention that attempts to summarize a full-blown saga. The kind of breezy mention that fools no one who has ever potty-trained a child before. It doesn't fool me, for example. I know that there are tears and messes and piles of damp clothes hidden underneath that quick, "Oh, yeah. She's wearing undies. Ain't no thang." I know.) Anyhow, the other day, while I was luxuriating in the extra free afternoon I had because I didn't have to board a bus for a night game until five o'clock, I was working at the computer when I heard Rudy moving around upstairs.

She came down from her nap, already changed into her undies, and told me that she had taken off her Pull-Up upstairs and had already peed in the potty up there, too. And she was telling the truth, because you better believe I ran up to check that out, expecting some other kind of mess. And then I sat back down at the table, and noticed Rudy crouched by one of the table legs, where our cat Mr. Peterson was curled up in a patch of sun. She told Petey that she was a big girl who uses the potty and wears undies. She told Petey that Marley, and Mommy, and Daddy use the potty and wear undies, too. She explained all of this in a very patient, loving, and proud tone. And then, statisfied with her update, she got up and went into the playroom.