The Silence of the Toddlers

As a parent fewer things strike fear into your heart more than one sound...that of complete silence. You know your child is up to no good when you hear dead silence. Especially when you are potty training her and you leave her for 30 seconds to go and find a new package of diapers (like I did a few weeks ago at the height of the potty training). All of a sudden I hear nothing, then little feet pattering around the bathroom and this is what I find. Please note that the now empty roll of Charmin was full about 35 seconds before this picture was taken. And the entire roll is inside the toilet.


Gotta love the, "Who me?" expression on her face.


This will so come back and haunt you, my child...

Potty Training 101

So I am not exactly sure how any adult manages to make it past childhood without turning into a pooping and peeing mess of a grown-up. Like learning to walk and Spam, potty training is a great unknown mystery that eventually results in a fully continent child. That said, I have been secretly wanting to potty train the Kid for months. We had a window of opportunity in January when she was going without any assistance, but with gearing up for the move and settling into life in Nashville, we missed it.

Now here we are a few months later, on day #7 of being diaper free in the daytime. Not to say that we haven't had a few, um, shall we call them...incidents.

Incident #1: The swimming pool. Before you throw up in you mouth, we didn't have a Baby Ruth candy bar in the bottom of the pool incident. We only (almost) did. I, in my zeal to go to the pool the other day forgot to pack a swim diaper. After about 30 minutes in the pool, she gets out for a snack and the old gastrocolic reflex kicks in and about 10 minutes later, we have a "what's that smell?" moment and then we are wrapping her in a towel and hustling her off to the Jeep, rushing home at 50 mph with the A/C blasting and all the windows down.

Incidents #2-#4: The pee puddles on the wooden floor. Let me preface this by saying that most of these happened when we were still in the 'Burgh. Of course, now that we have hardwoods, we have had it happen only once. While I have never had a pet that doesn't live in an aquarium, I imagine this is much like housebreaking a small puppy. Only I have a "puppy" who is able to throw a temper tantrum and talk back. Fun times.

Incident #5: Tiny underwear. It seems to be almost impossible to find. I have tried Target, Walmart and Children's Place to no avail to find XXS girls briefs. Stinking Kid with her nonexistent butt. Especially when she makes requests for Dora and Elmo underwear. At least she hasn't discovered princesses yet (hee-hee).

Incident #6: Michael Jackson moves. We have found that big girl underwear = lots of unfortunate grabbage, if you will. Seriously, Kid, 1985 called and wants its dance moves back.

The girl who cried poop

Every once in a while your child will throw you for a loop and start to have a developmental milestone without you anticipating it. Ever since the Kid started walking and talking (if that is what you want to call her somewhat intelligible Elmo-speak) we haven't had many obvious "milestones", so to speak. So much of development in the second year is cognitive, so big steps go unnoticed.

So, imagine my surprise on New Year's Eve when the Kid expressed a sudden and violent interest in using the potty. Not just flushing stuff down the toilet or barging in on me using the loo, but actually sitting on the seat and doing something productive when she is there. Hooray (or huh-yay, as the Kid says in the video below), right? Wrong!

We bought big girl panties as an incentive and proceeded in 30 minutes to clean up more pee from the floor than I have ever done in my life (reason #345 why Dr Drama doesn't have a dog). Back into pull-ups you go! Do you know what it is like going on a car trip with a potty training almost 2 year old? You officially become a slave to a child who has a bladder the size of a thimble and yells "poop" every time she needs to fart or if her stomach growls (I swear). Half the time you run to the nearest bathroom, only to have her already have used the diaper/pull-up or for her to dribble 12 drops of pee and say "all done!" very cheerfully. Seriously? I just cut off 3 lanes of Cincinnati traffic for this?

I am thinking that this might take a while or we are going to be needing a very large jar of M&Ms to make this work. I have always said that bribery (or reward systems - blah, blah) and potty training go hand in hand. Let the games begin!