Squinkies

If you are like I was about six months ago, you read that title and went "WTH is a Squinkie?"

Squinkies are tiny little toys - I'd say they're a little less than an inch tall, about the length of my fingertip down to my first knuckle (although, I have really small fingers, so this may not be a scientific measurement).  Here's a LINK to the Amazon collection, and a photo:

These come in packs.  I guess some of the packs are rare or coveted or something, because prices for a pack of 12 seem to range anywhere from about $6 to $30.  You can also buy houses, castles, cars, furniture, accessories, etc. for these, all that are just tiny enough to get lost until you step on them at 3 a.m.  Why are you up at 3 a.m.?  Don't sass me.

A friend of mine introduced the idea of these to me as a potty-training bribe.  (Little A is very, very stubborn - she has been able to go on the potty since 21 months, but just has no desire to stop playing long enough to go to the bathroom.  Diapers are easier.  I'm not sure I can even fault that logic, it IS efficient.)  I wasn't really huge into the idea of tiny little toys that she could feasibly choke on, but we needed something more long-term than M&Ms.  She's old enough to know not to put these in her mouth, so we went with it.

Our system:  every successful trip to the bathroom gets a Squinkie.  If she stays dry in her underwear for a week, she gets the Squinkie castle that we had in eyesight.  She did really well at going to the bathroom, so she literally has dozens of Squinkies - every single one represents a bowel or bladder movement, which is a little creepy.  I sort of love telling people that when she shows the Squinkie collection to them, just to see how it goes.

She wasn't all that motivated by the random packs, so we stepped up the game.  Of COURSE they have Disney princess packs.  And of COURSE they are more expensive.  They've actually come down a little recently, but I think a Beauty and the Beast pack was something like $16.  This became a less cost-effective bribery system at this point.  Eventually it worked, however.

They're small, they can be relatively cheap.  The accessories and houses and stuff are actually quite inexpensive, too, so the "big bribe" (if you're using it as such) won't really put you out all that much.

However - these things really are tiny.  They are invariably going to get lost in your couch cushions.  And you're going to step on them, like I mentioned before.  If you have younger children or pets, they may not be great purchases.  There's also not a great system to organize them - I'm a touch OCD, as I've mentioned, so I got sewing boxes with compartments, and we broke up each Disney princess movie into their own compartment.  And then I go a little crazy if Sleeping Beauty is in with Ariel's crap, but regardless.  I saw giant storage tubs of these on Google that were all just mixed together, and I think I need to lie down for a bit.

If we have to potty train another child, I think I might really talk up the M&Ms.  But it worked.