xu xu 好了沒有

慧慧 is almost fully toilet trained now. She already does not need diapers for her afternoon naps. And when she is awake, she will inform adults should she need to "xu xu" or even find her own way to the loo and does the deed herself (details censored).

There was once when my mum was in the kitchen and it has been pretty quiet in the living room for some time.

“慧慧！慧慧！你在哪裏？”

Not in the living room. Not in my room. Not in the master bedroom.

“慧慧！你在哪裏？”

My mum peeps into the master bedroom loo and finds my niece on the toilet seat (we've bought a smaller seat and it is placed there all the time, specially for her) looking up and grinning back at her.

“慧慧 xu xu！”

The final step now to getting her fully toilet trained is to get her to wake up in the middle of each night to "xu xu" so that eventually, she can do away with diapers at night completely. In fact, my mum has just recently taken it upon herself to achieve this goal.

For night and nap times, we have a portable potty, similar to the one you see below (but not as er... classy), on standby. My sis had bought it about a year ago to start off the toilet training process.So with this potty, my mum got started on the "mission". She has enjoyed moderate success thus far. After a while, she noted that when 慧 starts to fidget in her sleep, that's the signal to wake her up to "xu xu". I tell you, my mum is a superwoman; Fidget a little also can detect...

*Fidget fidget* My mum wakes up, checks the time and shakes my niece lightly.

“慧慧。。。慧慧。。。起來 xu xu 了。。。”

*More fidgetting*

“慧慧。。。快點起來 xu xu 。。。”

My niece wakes up very very reluctantly. My mum has to manhandle her to get her to stand up but she ends up leaning on my mum groggily, eyes still closed. In my mum's very own words (in hokkien),

"yee nen gaot gaot, ah mm see wa jio lat hor yee, yee ma la ei cia qi lai?!"

Translation in chinese: “她軟綿綿的，要是我借力給她，她哪兒站得起來？！”

After some difficulty, my mum finally manages to plop her on the portable potty (details censored again). I suppose my mum was also in a semi-state of consciousness for after what seemed like a long time, my mum did not recall hearing the er... giveaway "drip drip" sound, nor did my niece make any move to get up.

“慧慧。。。慧慧。。。xu xu 好了沒有？”

慧's head is already drooping and seems to have dozed off already. So my mum taps her cheek lightly and asks again,

“慧慧。。。xu xu 好了沒有？慧慧。。。”

“好了(an extra long and irritated "了")。。。！”

My mum pulls out the er... "container" to check, is "happy" with the "results" and puts 慧 back to bed (for the last time, details censored).

167 days to go.