Bad timing

Friday was Mabel's birthday. We celebrated by stuffing her into a car for a five-hour road trip to stay for three days with people she'd never heard of in a house with no toys. Poor baby. B and I were running round like headless chickens trying to remember everything and also have five minutes dedicated to producing birthday presents and being all yay! you're three!, and get people dressed so we could leave the house according to my military timekeeping (I aimed for 9am, we left at 9.40. I'll call that a win.). I divested her of her pyjamas and her pullup and went to put on the new one.

"But I'm three now so I'm going to wear underpants."

Oh. Oh great. Yes. This is what I've been telling her, right? But today? For the first time? In the car all morning/afternoon? How is that going to go?

"Ohhhh-kay!" I said brightly. "Though we'll be in the car, so if you need to go you'll have to hold it until we stop for lunch, you know." And I ran upstairs to grab an armful of 15 pairs of underpants and as many leggings as she owns (the number of which was, for these purposes, Not Nearly Enough).

By the time I came downstairs she'd decided that actually a pullup would be okay after all. "We'll start with underpants on Monday, okay?" I said, wilting with relief as the weekend ahead started to look that much simpler once again.

Today is Monday, and she's wearing a pullup, sitting in front of the dollhouse with a duvet around her, telling me that she's not doing a poo. I have probably set us back another three months.