Pull-ups. Ten cents.

My 6 1/2 year old is a major pee-er. She is also a great sleeper, which makes for a lot of pull-up diapers. It really doesn't bother me to buy them -- anymore. It used to, but I have made peace with it. We have tried hard -- together -- to kick the habit. She slept on the floor on blankets for three months once. I was pregnant. I was getting up to change said blankets two times a night. And then I was tired and she was tired and we were not making any progress. So we told her that she's the best sleep in our family, and that is why she wears pull-ups. I promised to come back to the issue later.

I want her to feel good about herself. But for some reason I've always been pretty annoyed at how fine she is with it. I mean I don't want to shame my child, but isn't a little shame okay? LOL! For example when she was four she started to pee in the damn pull-up BEFORE she fell asleep. I thought we got her to stop doing that about a year ago, until a few nights ago when I smelled the undeniable smell of pee coming from my cutie pie at 7:30 at night. I am pretty ashamed to say that I lost crap and I freaked out. I shamed her pretty badly, and I did it right in front of her sisters. I wasn't yelling, but I was really angry. She fell asleep in tears, and I hardly made it through the night I felt so badly. I snuck into hold her and kiss her and say sorry at midnight. I suck, sometimes.

But it got me thinking about the whole pull-up issue. What is the better parenting approach? What is the Christlike approach? What is the love and logic approach? What do my friends do? What are the real life consequences? The thought came to me to have her pay for her own Pull-ups. I immediately said, "no way." But the thought kept coming to my mind that this was a way to make her special AND thoughtful about the issue at the same time. I know ... How does that make her special? Well, she is just barely learning about coins and pennies and value in school, and it's really exciting to her. I thought of earning money and having something to buy is really special for her. I cast aside the thought of this pennies for pull-ups campaign at first because I thought it was sort of a slave/shame approach. But really the idea is about keeping it on her mind and having something in our life that's very Quinn-Centered. It speaks to her. So, I am no longer going to tell her how to use her Pull-ups. Instead, she does two chores every day to help our family, and when those are done she can do one more to earn the $.10 for her pull-up for that night. Pull ups cost $.25, but I told her we would subsidize the project. Right now she thinks it is a blast. But I think there will be a day soon when she makes the connection that it would be more fun to spend the $.10 on something else. And it's really not my job to tell her when that moment is. She's going to make this connection on her own. She's going to have a moment when this issue is something that she decides that she wants to conquer. I can't make her do it and still feel good about myself and my mothering. So it's off to the bank to get a little jar of pennies and nickels. And of course I'll need to do some brainstorming of some jobs are willing to let her do. Today she actually did a few dishes, and I got her to organize some toys I've been meaning to go through. She was very positive. It was nice. And then at nighttime she was so excited to come buy a pull-up from mom. LOL!

So wish me luck with the great pull-up project. It could go either way. I don't really mind if my parenting ideas fail in the long run. I just want to make sure that in the short term they make our family better. And for now this does.