I broke the favorite toy!

Not only did I break the favorite toy (the one I haven't had a chance to tell the story about, but I will do so now), I broke the favorite *piece* of the favorite toy. I have such mommy guilt right now, it's not even funny.

Remember the potty training saga? I'm sure you do. Well I am happy to report (at the risk of jinxing the whole thing) that he has been accident free for two weeks! And that includes pooping only on the potty. I think it was a combination of figuring out what part of the problem was (he thought pooping was bad; we explained that "pooping is good, just not in your pants" and things went much better), and some incentive.

Yes, a bribe! What bribe, you ask? A Transformers Aerialbot. And not just any Aerialbot, but the helicopter (he *loves* "hebadoctors"), and the last one of the set of six needed to make the "super robot" by combining all six with some special attachment pieces. He had been begging for them since we gave him the first one several weeks ago. Then he figured out from looking at the picture that there were more in the set, so they have been doled out, one at a time, since February or so, for good behavior and special occasions. What better way to prompt final potty training success than with the final piece of the super robot?

So, I made up a sticker chart (thanks to whoever suggested that on the board; I think it was Jen). There were 8 squares. Seven of them represented fully accident free days. But there was a special square on the end that represented a successful "poopy in the potty." If there was an accident of any kind on any day, he had to start the sticker chart over again until he went 7 full consecutive days with no accidents and a successful poopy. We began on May 4. By May 10 (seven days later, including May 4), we had this:


Which meant we could also make this:


And there was much rejoicing in the land, by everyone. Now, you can't see it, but the helicopter is on the back of the robot (basically serving no purpose). Well, Luke got the idea that this is what made the super robot able to fly, sort of like a jet pack (which I thought was pretty smart on his part). Without the helicopter, super robot cannot fly.

You can see where I'm going with this, right? Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen, Mommy broke the helicopter. Well, not exactly. The chest plate part has little pegs on it, which correspond to holes on the black jet (in the front, seen in the picture) and the helicopter (on the back). For some unknown reason, he put the super robot under a blanket in the floor before going to bed, and I had no idea. I accidentally kicked it as I was walking through the den, and I heard a crack. I hoped it was just the pieces coming apart as they were intended. Yeah, like I'm that lucky!

The peg that holds the helicopter on the back of the big robot snapped off. Not only that, but it snapped off inside the helicopter, and too low down for us to get a grip on it and pull it out, even using needle nose pliers (trust me, we tried). So now, not only do we have to replace the chest plate piece (which came with one of the robots, but naturally not the helicopter), we also have to replace the helicopter itself since the hole is now plugged.

Did I mention these toys are several years old? We found them at CVS, which means they were probably remainders from "real toy stores" sold at some reduced rate. And this was months ago. So the likelihood of them still being there, particularly the ones we need, is slim. That won't stop us from visiting every CVS Pharmacy within semi-reasonable driving distance tomorrow looking for them, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up. And even if we do manage to find them, there will still be trauma (drama?) in the morning when he discovers that it is broken. Not looking forward to that moment at all.

Currently feeling: like a terrible mommy