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The Introduction
Hello and welcome to the Potty Tots blog - Tales from Toddlerhood. First let me introduce myself - my name is Jennifer Ware, and I'm the illustrator behind the Potty Tots. I'm here to share the trials & tribulations of potty training, rearing two toddlers 17 months apart, and the occasional silly stories we are so fortunate to witness. I hope you check back often - we've got lots to share!
I suppose I'll start at the beginning. I've wanted children since I could hold a baby doll. So, when I found Mr. Right (well, Mr. Ware), it took everything he had to prolong the inevitable until he was finished with college. (And let me say that chihuahuas can temporarily fill a gap if need be.) Even so, pretty much the day he got his diploma, we conceived baby #1 - our darling girl Lilly Bean. We LOVED this precious angel so much that when she was only 7 months old, we decided that we were ready to start thinking about baby #2. Well, there is no thinking in this family, we just dive in feet first and see what happens, and little Joe was born not long afterward. It's been so much fun, that I'm not sure if we're done with the expansion of our brood just quite yet. Mr. Ware seems to think so, but I don't know...these babies are pretty special little chickens.
Which reminds me of something I'll never forget. When my Godchild was a toddler, (she's 11 now) one of the things that my older cousin told me was this, "Raising children is one the hardest things you'll ever do, but they are, without a doubt, the best thing that will ever happen to you." And he's absolutely right. They are wonderful and difficult at times, and I when think about all of the things that were a little hair-raising, (the sleepless nights over our little NICU graduate, a new baby brother with a fresh coat of paint, our mountain of Happy Meal toys that seems to expand exponentially, and the list goes on...) I find that the most challenging of all (so far!) was potty training. I guess it must have taken us the better part of a year to train Princess Lilly to use the potty - I was baffled at the level of difficulty this task had become. I read books, researched online, consulted relatives, friends, bought drones of pretty panties, etc. Then to our amazement, she just decided one day, out of the clear blue sky that she was ready. One day. That's it.
Now when I was ready for my sans-diaper pay raise with Joe, I braced myself for the long haul. But LO & BEHOLD, (I was looking for tasks to support my work-at-home habit that had essentially grown into a small business capable of just keeping the lights on at the Warehouse.) I ran across a post for a freelance artist to create a logo for an up & coming potty training company. I just HAD to bid on it - I was right in the middle of training my littlest, and maybe they could offer me advice so I could start saving the world, one disposable diaper at a time. (If we ever do, in fact, expand our brood, I'm using cloth - I promise!) I was fortunate enough for Jill to grant me the opportunity to create the new Potty Tots images from her fantastic ideas and sketches. I was thrilled on so many levels - this was a great company, and Joe would be one of the official Potty Tots' very first test subjects. Wow!
Oh my goodness. I wish they would have been there when I was working with Lilly. Joe was barely two years old, and I had my diaper bonus in my pocket, going shopping while toting around a potty in the back of my car. Whoohoo! It was great - the program worked so well, and I honestly believe that because he & Lilly watched the Potty Tots come to life, they wanted to be just like them. They could relate to these toddlers that looked like they did, and they could visualize using the potty through the characters.
Which brings us to today. Freshly diaper-free, on to the next challenges of toddlerhood.
So...does anyone have advice on lowering the pitch of a toddler's scream as her brother accidentally spills his beloved strawberry milk all over her watercolor masterpiece? I just can't seem to explain to our budding painter that the artists of the Renaissance did, in fact, use items from our modern day refrigerators in their paint.
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