Will there be a fairy tail ending?

Alexander is potty training.

Alexander has been potty training for approximately a year and a half now. That's how long ago the first time was that he sat on the potty ring in our old house, did his business, and we all jumped around like idiots in celebration and called people on the phone.

We were so naive then.

Things are different now. He knows what he's supposed to do, he's just not doing it. We have tried it all: stickers, food rewards (cookies, m&ms), letting him choose his own potty to use, read books and watched DVDs about the potty, putting him in underwear in an ill-fated "potty training boot camp" attempt, etc. If there is a method out there that we haven't tried, I haven't found it.

I always laugh when I'm at the store, searching for the elusive size 7 diapers and looking at the pictures on the front of the diaper packages. Size 2 - baby lying down, size 3 - sitting up, size 4 - crawling, size 5 - walking, and so on. The numbers are getting higher as the diapers grow larger. I imagine the diapers growing ever bigger and the corresponding pictures that might be featured on the front. Size 13 - the happy parent snapping a photo of two kids dressed up for the prom. Size 14 - the parent looking lovingly from the passenger's seat as their child drives the family car for the first time. Size 15 - parents applauding proudly as they watch their child receive his diploma. You get the picture. It could go on and on.

One night, I was thinking about what had happened that evening. Alexander had gone on the potty and of course we were very pleased. But how to encourage him and continue the trend? Then suddenly, I had a revelation. The tooth fairy rewards us with a little gift during the night to celebrate a lost tooth. I'd heard tales of other parents, in a desperate attempt to rid their household of pacifiers that hung around too long, telling their child that the "pacifier fairy" was coming to take away all of the pacifiers and take them to other babies who needed them. What did they leave behind? A gift, of course.

Hmmm.

There seemed to be a fairy for every occasion. So why not, then, a Potty Fairy? Did someone already have this idea and not told me about it? This could be it. Go on the potty and a mystical fairy comes overnight and leaves a gift. It had to work!!

Inspired, I ran out to CVS just before they closed the doors and searched for a small prize that would reward Alexander for his, er, efforts that day. I snatched up a pinwheel with an American flag pattern on it along with a couple of other little trinkets for future occasions. Upon returning home, I laid the pinwheel on his play table and sprinkled glitter around for, you know, a fairy-like touch.

After he and I came downstairs the next morning, he started playing with some toys and I very casually said, "Hey, what's that?" His eyes widened as he spotted the pinwheel and the glitter sprinkled all around. "Look! Sparkles!" he said in amazement.

"Oh... you know what that must be?" I said in excitement. "The potty fairy! She comes at night and brings special things for boys and girls who go on the potty! You did such a great job on the potty last night and she was watching." He listened to this story, transfixed, as he happily spun his new pinwheel.

The next day, I stocked up on more Potty Fairy toys. I wanted to be prepared! The dollar store and Target's dollar spot became my friends. (Ok, so they already were.) In fact, one day Alexander and I were browsing around the dollar spot and he spotted some beads that were mysteriously like the ones left for him by the Potty Fairy, only in a different color. He pointed this out to me right away. "Hmm, I guess the Potty Fairy shops at Target," I mused. He agreed.

We talked up the Potty Fairy. Sometimes she left white glitter, sometimes blue. She is always watching, we cautioned Alexander. Soon the concept just became a part of everyday life for him. One day, at a nearby playground, I was getting some things out of the car, holding Colette, while Alexander took off running toward a little boy and his mom at the swings. As I approached, I saw the woman looking at him with a perplexed look on her face. "What's the Potty Fairy?" she asked him. "Do you mean the Tooth Fairy?"

Obviously the Potty Fairy has a long way to go when it comes to being a household name. Almost as long as it will take Alexander to become potty trained, apparently. I continue buying little musical instruments, nightlights and assorted other trinkets as I wonder to myself, will THIS be the toy that causes him to make the leap into underwear? I'm at the dollar store now, but I'm sure the toy selection will run thin. What then? Soon we move up to Wal-Mart and Shop-Rite until eventually I'm buying him Ipods and Wii systems. At least with the Tooth Fairy you have a finite amount of baby teeth.

By then I'll be broke and unable to afford diapers anymore (or anything else for that matter). Maybe that's what'll finally do it. Because something has to... right?

Maybe if I go to bed now, a magical fairy will come during the night and bring me the answer.