If I can’t write something funny about potty training, there’s just no point in writing anything but technical briefs any more. Potty training is the most hilarious event in the entirety of my life. Possibly with the exception of my own potty training, but I thankfully don’t remember back that far (and I am exceptionally grateful my parents kept no journal- let alone a blog- so there is no paper trail).
Here’s the short version. Day 1: Chase toddler around the house on edge because you’re oddly worried about your already quite stained carpets. Demand she sit on potty every 1/2 hour, just like the books/experts/websites/etc. say, because really, if you were on a toilet every 1/2 hour, would you be een tepted to pee on the carpet? Clean up pee. Clean up even more pee. From the carpet, from the bathroom floor, and from the toddler. I had no idea she even peed this frequently. Let alone that the obvious thing to do with a pee puddle on the floor would be to splash one’s hands and feet in it and then rub it all over oneself with your hands, while Mom tries to clean up your feet. Where do you even start? If you do the hands first, the feet are in the pee puddle. If you do the puddle and feet first, the hands have been everywhere by the time you get to them. It’s hopeless.
We had more accidents in the first two hours of Saturday than I usually go to the bathroom in a day. She crys. She finally takes a nap, and you cry, or at least think about it. You do 6 loads of laundry because she’s gone through all 18 pairs of the underwear you bought that many times.
Day 2: Morning goes exceptionally well. There’s pee in the potty and dancing all around- literally, because you follow expert advice and reward your toddler with a goofy potty dance for success. Said potty dance looks suspicously like a Snoopy dance, because it’s really the only dance you, as a super-dorky, highschool outcast, and current engineer know, other than the running man. And that’s even worse.
Then you make the mistake of discussing potty training on the phone with Bubble and Gramps (your parent’s/toddler’s grandparents- don’t ask how we settled on Bubble). Toddler overhears, and all hell breaks loose. There’s pee everywhere again, and you have no idea what caused it.
The day devolves into more crying on all parties, especially when peeing is involved. You wonder if your child might have a medical problem (like a UTI) causing actual physical pain, and seriously consider 1) taking her to a doctor, 2) putting a damn diaper back on her to see if that’ll fix the crying peeing nightmare. Eventually it’s bedtime and you have done neither, so you cross your fingers and go to bed, too, dreading waking up the next day.
You also realize that she can’t go naked to school on Tuesday, so you probably ought to try putting some sort of clothing on her tomorrow, while she’s still at home and in arm’s reach of a washing machine. Or, if you’re really lucky, you skip out on the last few hours and leave your spouse to deal with dinner and bedtime.
There are funny parts, too, if you’re willing to find them. Admittedly, some of it is at the expense of your toddler, as she grabs her crotch and hobbles or does a dance reminiscent of that weird side-to-side, foot-to-foot thing the New Kids on the Block did, while insisting ‘No Potty!’ Yeah, right kid. You don’t have to go to the potty at all.
Trust me, you need this comic relief, so don’t feel bad about rolling on the floor and crying because you think she’s so funny. Laugh at your spouse, too, when he/she gets peed on. It’s funny, and you need a lot of funny today.
(this is the part where the miracle happens)
Day 3: You wake up and immediately grab your toddler as she’s starting to stand up in her crib and take off her pull-up. She pees, in the potty. Without crying. You are re-invigorated, and dedicate yourselves to a day of calm, laisse faire potty training. So what? The carpet’s already ruined. We knew we’d have to replace it eventually anyway. Plus, I heard that pee is sterile. Let’s just make sure the poo is cleaned up thoroughly. We’ll let her do her thing, and see if it works. If not, we’ll try another day.
And you spend the day really trying to be relaxed. And this is when the hilarity strikes.
Sheer desperation (of a toddler refusing to go to the bathroom) was funny yesterday, mostly because you needed it so badly. Today, though, you get the real gems.
For instance, I walked into the bathroom shortly after my husband had gotten my daughter when she ran off, what we thought was a mere minute earlier. There were some water drops on the (grown-up) toilet lid, and some on the floor. The child potty has spots of water in it, as though it had just been rinsed.
Me: ‘Honey, did you clean up in here? Did she just pee?’
Ninja: ‘No, I didn’t see anything. What do you mean?’
Me: ‘Well, there’s a big puddle on the toilet lid. It’s almost like…Ugggh.’
Somehow, in spite of our very fixed attention and diligence to PMM, she ran off for a few moments. Normally this happens and if she doesn’t come running back, we follow after her. This weekend, what with the lack of diapers, we haven’t let her leave our sight.
But she did, somehow, and in this momentary lapse she was able to first: use her potty. Second: empty her potty ‘into’ the grown-up toilet. I use quotes, of course, because the lid was down and she had dumped quite a lot of pee directly onto the lid, just like she had watched us do. Not only did she pee in her potty, but she cleaned up after herself. Sort of. My kid’s awesome. But I still have to clean up pee.
Day 4: Thank goodness it’s Tuesday! Why the hell did we do this over a 3 day weekend? We pay good money to have very qualified people be patient during the week.
As much as I usually wish I could spend more time with PMM, rather than at work, this is one week I will feel almost zero guilt over leaving her at school. Until the last. possible. minute.
The other thing no one tells you about potty training is that as focused as your are on toilets and human waste, you will have almost no opportunities to yourself use the potty in between chasing your toddler to the bathroom for every false alarm and cleaning up pee. So get plenty of rest, stock up on pre-made snacks like cheese sticks and pre-cut apples, and practice holding it until the weekend’s over.
