Yes, I did it. My rent that has been sitting in the bank for a week or so and I gouged into it.

The way money works for me is like so: JDawg pays two equal support payments each month on the first and fifteenth. Then, I get a few different sources of government assistance, being a low-income single mom, like rental assistance and child tax benefits. And every few months or so, I invoice my clients. All of these moneys work out so that the bulk of my income is in the last 10 days of the month - actually about 70% of it.

So the beginning of the month is ’spend it if ya got it’ time and thankfully, the end of the month is when most of the bills are due. But today, I stepped out of my normal spending spectrum to buy Isobel some size two clothes.

[Cuz we're going to start potty training next week. And we need big, easy-to-remove clothes. Like a size two is - she's wearing 12-18 and 18-24 months, right now.]

I spent $55 and she got to pick out some sale stuff. A touque, dress, cardigan, tunic, leggings and skirt later, I am fully immersed in PINK.

And I feel like I spend smartly, but still shouldn’t have spent. The guilt, sometimes kills me. Though…

I stopped myself from selling out and getting her a $45 kick-ass army green pea-length winter coat cuz a) it was $45 and b) it had faux fur on the hood. We don’t do fur - real or not. But then again…we never used to do commercial children’s characters, either, or PINK.

I’ve sold out. Toddler-styles.

Why is it that as soon as you enter the 18 month to four year old age bracket, you seem to lose the ability to say toilet? Everything becomes potty, and not just when speaking to your child. This totally has my panties in a bunch, considering how cool I used to be. Every so often, something happens which just further drives down the money-metre.

So, when Isobel was coming up on 18 months, I jumped into potty training mode for about as long as it took me to buy a potty seat and wrap it and watch her open it on Christmas morning. Oh, I think I read a few books, too.

She spent a lot of naked time in the apartment, peeing on the floor and TV time, sitting on the potty. We had a 50% success rate, which was based on accidental Dora-excitement-induced peeing, I’m sure. I dropped the potty training dreams.

[Because, let's be honest, I would love to get to gloat that not only did my kid walk early, but she potty trained at 18 months, too!]

Now, she’s 24 and a half months and we rarely have pulled it (meaning the dream) back out, cuz it’s just not seemed the effort, cuz she isn’t ready ready, and I only have so many potential witchdoctors to visit for a much needed potty-training-induced Valium prescription.

But then, picture it. We’re cruising through a bargain basement place, Winners, looking for housewares that I really shouldn’t be buying - because though I need them, I can’t really afford them at this juncture of the month - and we’re shoving things in the bottom of the stroller and behind her in the seat.

And she’s all legs in the air, showin the world her ass in a cute little princessey dress and pants. (That’s my girl.)

“Mama. Poop,” she says, pointing to her nether regions.

“You have to, or you did?” I ask back. Then we both see something shiny and we forget about it. Until I walk down the aisle after the next one and am hit with the stench that only a diet based on produce and rice milk can create. Ugh. Thank god they have a bathroom.

We go in, and hey, since I’ve gotta go anyways…Let’s just check the diaper damage first and then I can let go of the 20 last two cups of coffee that I drank. Completely shit-free, that diaper. Hmm. Apparently she stayed up drinking all night and now has the evil gassy hangover from it.

She decides that she wants to sit on the potty. Well, whatever - we’re here anyways, she’s basically stripped down. So I plop her on and she tries to drag 87 million miles of toilet paper from the dispenser into the toilet. That ended with an abrupt, “C’est la fin,” from me and a plop from the toilet.

Yup, that’s right. My kid? Totally dropped some kids off at the pool. The public pool.

[I promise, this is one of very very very very few times I talk about poop. On here.]