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Saturday, May 31, 2008

Unauthorized Potty Training Again

When I got home Friday morning after working out, there were a lot of hysterics coming from the boys' room. I'm not quite sure what happened, but it involved my older son (OS), our golden retriever, my younger son (YS) and a beluga whale. Alright, a stuffed beluga whale. I mean, a stuffed animal beluga whale. From the amount of racket, I would have believed that a real beluga whale was involved in whatever was happening. After calming everyone down, I decided to hold off on my shower until after breakfast. By the time everyone finished breakfast, I was hearing more coherent sobs explaining how OS had taken the whale from YS and given it to the dog who ran around with it. Despite the sobs, it was time to get the boys dressed to leave for preschool. The dog did get the last ~~laugh~~ look...I believe he may have had a triumphant expression on his face as the wailing started up again as we walked out the door.

When YS and I returned, I jumped in the shower while YS was playing with his trucks in the bathroom. When I finished the shower, I was surprised to find YS sitting on a potty chair! That's right, there was unauthorized potty training going on in our house! I didn't even know he knew what it was. We had just never bothered to put it back in the basement after my older son (OS) had graduated to a real toilet. I'm sensing a theme here about not rushing. For the rest of the morning, he insisted on trying the potty, instead of having us go to the grocery store or on any of our other planned errands.

This experience reminded me of why I'm a big fan of waiting until a child is three to be potty-trained. At three they'll potty train in a couple of days, and their bladders are large enough that you'll never have to abandon a shopping cart of frozen foods to explore the scary bathrooms in the bowels of the grocery store while hoping that the creepy teenage sales clerk who's lurking around will go back to playing with his...iPod. Not that parents of young children don't get to enjoy the memorable grocery store bathroom experience for other reasons, such as pregnancy or when shopping after a workout in which you have drunk an entire large sports bottle of water. Potty-training is even better if you wait until children are 8 because they can do their own laundry. So maybe I'm kidding about the last part.

After a brief period of diaper wearing to pickup OS from preschool, the unauthorized potty training continued for the rest of the day, and OS and I abandoned our plans for the park. Could potty training really be this easy? Was my child a genius? Well, of course I think he is, regardless of when he gets potty trained! Visions without diapers filled my mind. These images were shattered when I heard an ear piercing shriek followed by two boys crying. I won't go into the details, but let's just say that something happened involving two boys, mardi gras beads, hanging out under a kitchen table, and a major accident. By major accident, I don't mean that someone stubbed their toe. I was surprised that the dog wasn't there, but that was because he was outside. YS has shown no further interest in potty training since then. Phew. The dog on the other hand showed a lot of interest in hanging out under the table when I let him come back inside after I cleaned up the mess.

I am back to my plan of holding off on potty training until YS turns three or hires an attorney to convince me that he was ready. I may have seen a movement, but I have not yet seen any "motions."

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Kids do things on their own schedules.

Labels: Child Health and Personal Care, Humor (at least Attempted), Pets and Animals, Toys / Clothes / Gear

posted by Alex Elliot @ 7:47 PM 7 comments

7 Comments:

At 6/01/2008 3:35 AM, Shamelessly Sassy said…

Love your blog header!
At 6/01/2008 7:02 AM, Amy said…

I am firmly in the "wait" camp when it comes to potty training. I was completely not ready to start with Harper until she forced me into it.
At 6/01/2008 11:50 AM, Heather said…

Apparently we are waiting for my son to turn 30 before he trains.

Bitter? Me? Nah.
At 6/01/2008 12:26 PM, jodifur said…

What if you have a 3 year old who had absolutely no interest in potty training? Then what? B/c that's where I am.
At 6/01/2008 12:42 PM, Jen of A2eatwrite said…

Nothing could be truer than your words of wisdom today.
At 6/01/2008 5:55 PM, Tracey said…

The one thing I am positive about when it comes to potty-training is that there is NO good time to do it and truly? There is no "one size fits all" method.

My boys? Started DS1 at 2 and it took him until age 4 to get FIRMLY get it. Started DS2 at 3 and it took him until age 4 to get it...

My daughter? Decided at barely age 2 to potty-train HERSELF in 1 day.
And I will say that she has the strongest bladder of all of my kids. She's even been NIGHT trained for several months now!

I think karma played a big part in that one...
At 6/02/2008 5:33 PM, Suzanne said…

Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha.

Man, am I glad I missed this. Reading about it, though, is hilarious.

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Name:	Alex Elliot
Home:	MA, United States
About Me:	Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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