It was a colorful box depicting a little girl masterfully decorating a brown "cake." It was a mud pie kit.
Lee couldn't believe his eyes. A kit?! A kit for making a mud pie? Seriously? Kids today need a kit to make something Lee and I made with mud, grass, sticks, and rocks when we were kids? With disbelief, he flipped the box over to check out what a $20 kit would include. A cake mold (well, that's kinda cool), a cake "knife," serving plates, a serving spatula, candles, roses, a mud dispenser - like a frosting gun, and thin plastic "frosting" to sit on top of the cake. It looked like average playdough stuff. In fact, I'm sure I could make a cake out of play dough with this stuff without a problem.
Lee put the box back on the shelf and reminded Abby that they were there to shop for a friend and not for her. Abby let it go long enough to get the task finished, but later that day, she wouldn't stop talking about it. In fact when I got home from work, it was the first thing Abby talked to me about. She went on and on and on about it. Finally, we cut her a deal. If she could stop using diapers than we would buy her the mud pie kit. That means she couldn't wear a diaper at bed time. She would have to use her potty for all #2 actions - something she had struggled with for a long time now. And she would have to go diaperless for about 4 or 5 days before we would give her the toy. Abby agreed and we bought the toy, leaving the kit sitting on the dinning room table as a visible reminder.
And you know what? She totally did it!
She held up her end of the bargain and she's not used diapers since. Woohoo! I can't tell you how happy we are to hit this milestone. Yesssssss!
Not only that, but once she got the toy she didn't regress. When she went over to visit Grammy, she didn't regress. She kept right on using her potty. We're so proud of our little girl!
After Abby got her mud pie kit, the weather didn't cooperate. She wasn't able to go right out and use it because it was raining. When we had a break in the weather, we never seemed to find the time to christen the kit with real mud.
Finally, just the other day, we were able to get outside, find some wet dirt (I wouldn't really call it mud), and Abby built her cake.
Not bad, eh?
What I appreciated was that Abby still added her own natural touches. Grass, leaves, pine cones, acorns, nuts, sticks, you name it. And I think her personal touches really make it look great.
We've even taken it up to the snow. It makes pretty good snow cakes too!
Congrats on the potty training! That's awesome! Never underestimate the power of bribery!
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