I once heard someone describe herself as an "at-home vegetarian." What she meant by that was that she and her family rarely eat meat at home, but if they go out to dinner or to a friend's home, they will more often than not eat the meat that is served to them.

I think that's kind of where we're at with Evie's potty-training. We're at-home potty-trained. When we're in the usual place, in the usual routine, and when I make sure to take her to the bathroom every so often whether she thinks she needs to or not--we're good. We're golden. She can go all day, even naptimes, with no accidents. And most of the time, even when we're at the park or out running errands, she does very well as long as I do give her enough opportunities for a potty break.

But. There has to be a but, doesn't there? When she's at someone else's house, it's hit and miss. If I don't take her to the bathroom when *I* think she needs to, not when she *says* she needs to, the accidents happen. Sometimes she does correctly identify her need to use the bathroom and warn me in advance, sometimes she doesn't.

If you (like me) are a mom of other kids who potty-trained somewhat on the later end of the spectrum, then you (like me) probably comforted yourself with this phrase when you saw the little 2-or-younger kids who had somehow miraculously graduated out of diapers and into undies: "Well, when they're that young it's really the MOM who is trained, not the kid."

That's where Evie and I are now. And it's true. I'm the one who knows when she needs to go. I've developed a pretty good spidey-sense about it. A potty-radar, if you will. I somehow mentally keep track of how much fluid and food she has taken in recently, and when the last time she went was, and how long she can go before she needs to visit the bathroom. As long as we're around a bathroom and I'm not getting overly distracted, we're good. But it's me who is directing these bathroom visits, not her being in full control of her own urges. Also she can't really pull down her own pants or climb onto the potty by herself that well anyway. So I tell her when she needs to go, (or, occasionally she tells me), I take her in there, she does her business, everybody's happy, and the kids all eat a marshmallow. Win-win-win.

Overall, that means she's like 75 percent potty-trained. Kinda potty-trained. At-home potty-trained. Really fully truly completely potty-trained? No.

But you know what? I'll take it. She can wear undies at home or on short errands, and pull-ups on away-from-home visits or hours-long trips. We're still saving mega-bucks on diapers and I'm not having to deal with the routine disgustingness of changing a toddler's pants all day long. For right now, for this age, it's good enough for me.

At-home potty-trained. I can deal with that.