It is official. Our smallest (youngest) adventurer is a tiny version of Bear Grylls.

Our youngest kid is only 3 years old and left her diapers behind several months ago.  There wasn’t much of a ceremony about this major milestone, but I was obviously a very proud dad when this happened, especially as she left them behind at the age of around 18 months.  Not to mention, removing diapers from the weekly shopping list certainly improves our family budget further.

I do believe that one of the triggers for her getting toilet trained quicker was because she saw her siblings going to the toilet, and she being the smallest wanted to be as cool as the older kids.

Another huge factor in this transition was that she suddenly developed a nasty case of nappy rash.  We’ve always used Pampers while living in Ireland, but for some reason her tiny toosh became red as a strawberry so it was clear it was something in the chemicals they had added to Pampers in the US.  To be fair, that was the biggest reason for her to move off the diapers … nappy rash, itching and pain or smooth bottom with no discomfort?

Now, back to the main story.

A few weeks ago, when the sun appeared and the days were growing lighter, she (the tiniest version of my wife) was playing outside.  She was too busy going to the toilet, but she realized that she had to go.  But, to avoid missing out on any hard core playtime, she had to come up with an alternative.

What would Bear Grylls do?

You could tell she was up to something.  She was scouting a number of places trying to find the best area where she would have full privacy and also an area where she could easily bury her ‘package’.

These locations are fairly limited on a 10 x 20 foot decking, partially occupied by a outdoor dinning table + chairs, and not to mention the huge plastic playhouse.

The obvious choice would have been in the playhouse, but she chose something a little less obvious and different.  A couple of yellow square cones came with the playhouse, primarily used as chairs.  These items are hallow and could be filled with toys, balls, etc.

We were focused on preparing the dinner when we suddenly spotted the littlest one sitting on the yellow plastic cone.  She was extremely concentrated, but did manage to give us a smile and a wave.  I swear it looked like thumbs up sign.

She had made up her own toilet by flipping the yellow cone on it’s head (seat) and had started #2.  When you gotta go you gotta go!?