When we left Alaska for the Christmas holiday, Jacob was almost entirely potty trained. We still put him in a diaper at night, but that was the only time. Jacob’s Granna Jan knew this, and in anticipation of his arrival she bought some Pampers pull-ups – the absorbent underwear for toddlers. What Jan didn’t know is that pull-ups come in gender specific varieties. Jan bought pink girl pull ups, femininely decorated with princesses on them. Now, if it were me, I would have been done right then and there. I mean, I’d rather wrap a dish towel around him, right?

But Stephanie is open minded and highly adaptive. Stephanie recognized that one of the, um, princesses was Arial from The Little Mermaid, a movie with which Jacob is familiar. Stephanie pointed this out and called them, “Arial underwear.” Though I was very uncomfortable with this, Jacob wore them happily every night. Pink underwear decorated with princesses. Dang.

Eventually though, they went through every pull-up in the pack, and it was time to buy more. This time, obviously, Stephanie bought the blue boys pull-ups. That night, when it was time for bed, Stephanie pulled out the new blue underwear and tried to put them on the boy. The boy freaked out, crying, “No? Don’t like that underwear?” No? Don’t like it?!” When she insisted, he wailed, cried huge alligator tears, and tried to pull them down. He wanted… (wait for it) …the princess underwear.

Later, Stephanie took Jacob with her to return the blue pull ups. She took him down the diaper isle and let him browse the varieties. Luckily, they also had Cars pull ups. Stephanie pointed these out, and Jacob enthusiastically asked, “Want to hold them?" And so she let him hold the package as he looked at them in wonder.  

And so Stephanie asked him, “Okay Jacob. Now tonight when we go to bed are you going to wear the Cars pull ups?”  “No?” he said with his trademark upward inflection. So they continued to browse the shelf until they saw the pink princess underwear. Stephanie asked, “Jacob, do you want to wear these?” “Yyyess,” he said with a single emphatic nod. So she bought them and took them home. Nice.