I am hunkered down in the trenches here, engaged in a battle to the death with the stubbornest three year old I’ve ever met. She has given a peace offering and acquiesced to my demands that she pee in the potty, but she is holding out for her right to mess a perfectly good diaper with the dreaded Number Two.

I am not an uncompromising enemy. I have offered many gifts, freedoms and a fair share in the spoils of war if she will make stinkers in the potty even one time. There is a princess doll taped to the towel rack. She knows she gets a trip to the Disney Store complete with new shoes and a Tinkerbell toy just for surrendering one bowel movement to the toilet.

We took her to the bathroom several times at the mall last night, my forces braving the germ factor of the public bathroom in an attempt to align her will with the poop and promise of free toys from the store below. Finally, the mall closed and we returned home, our enemy screaming all the way about the “SHOOOOOOOES and the Tinkerbeeeeeeel TOOOOY.” We negotiated terms. We resisted her cunning plot to restructure our terms to include toys for number one. We’ve already fought and bought that battle. It is down to the poop.

She woke up three times last night screaming about the toy and the shoes. We countered again with the poop bargain. No dice. It’s getting to be a long battle, but even in the throes of enemy sleep torture, I will not relent.

This morning all we hear about is going to the store and getting the toy. All she hears back is, “Pleeeease, please poop on the potty and then we will take you to the store, buy you sparkly shoes and fancy Tinkerbell toys, and this can end.” She shakes her head as if to say, “Dear woman, you just don’t understand. Life, liberty and the pursuit of poop on my terms are the goals, and I am prepared to make these sacrifices.

I fight dirty and take her diaper off so she has no choice but to hold it or go outside a diaper. She never misses the potty with number one, but as before she can hold two until she is doubled over in pain, until she finds her zen-place where the poop no longer matters, until she falls asleep five hours later and then her body relaxes enough to eliminate. It has been an ugly battle, one that has caused me to retreat on many occasions. I came prepared this time. In my arsenal is a bottle of prune juice. She WILL poop.

I am confident that if she can get over this hurdle even once, she will gain enough courage to keep it up. She loves to sit on the potty, loves to flush, but is completely freaked out by the actual elimination process. The first few times she peed, she screamed the entire time, then, upon finding herself alive afterward, laughed, wiped and flushed. It only took a few times, and now she’s confident. So really, just one good poop could be the key to my victory.

I must sign off for now, as the battle requires my attention.