If You're So Smart, Why Are You Still In Diapers? (A Potty Training Tale)

She's my fourth child.  I've done the potty training before with 2 boys and a girl.  The boys were potty-trained just short of 3 years old and the girl at about 2 1/2.  Little Miss has been watching everyone and commenting on their toileting habits for a while now although she’s just turned 2.  I went through the potty training checklist in the little dog-eared book I bought at a used book store which promises to help me "potty train your child in one day or less."  According to the list, she is ready.  One day sounds good to me.  Let's just say it took me a bit longer with the other 3. 

 Step one--Stock up on snack foods and drinks that she likes so she'll drink a lot during the morning and provide more opportunities for success.  That's no problem.  The problem is finding places to stash said snack foods to prevent the other people in the house from descending on it like a swarm of locusts.  I explain the reason for the snack foods and threaten the lives of one and all if they eat any of it.  Problem solved.

 Step Two--Get a doll that wets so that the child can train the doll and learn the routine.  I have looked all over this island.  The only wetting dolls are upwards of $50  and I can't quite make myself pay that.  The $60 potty chair about did me in.  I reason that I can use a regular doll and just fake the pee (you know, casually drip some water on the doll's clothes when she's not looking).

Step Three--Get everyone out of the house so that you can work one on one with the trainee without distractions.  Okay, I can see the reason for that.  With 6 people in our little condo, it can be fairly distracting.  Husband volunteers to sacrifice for the cause.  He'll take the older three to the beach for the morning while I toilet train Little Miss.  What a guy.

Step Four--Talk about toileting ALL THE TIME.  If the child starts to talk about something else, bring her back to the subject.  Talk about where pee pee goes.   Talk about how everyone else in the family, nay on the planet, from Daddy to Elmo all go pee pee in the potty.  Talk about how only babies wear diapers and she's a big girl.  On and On and ON.  I check the book to make sure I don't need additional supplies like hot lights or a swinging pocketwatch--nope. 

Little Miss watches me with concern as I continually talk about toileting. It's the kind of look we give someone who's raving while we dial for the men in white coats.  I don't blame her considering her latest attempt at conversation.  "Mommy, yook at the dinosaur.  He MEAN."  "Yes, I see.  Where do we go pee pee?"  I'd be making reservations for a padded room for anyone who acted like that.

Step Five--Perform dry pants checks at regular intervals and reward dry pants.  This one, my girl gets excited about.  I show her how to feel her brand new training pants to see if they are dry.  If they are, she gets a Skittle and a verbal encouragement, "You have dry pants.  What a big girl."

 We go on like this throughout the morning.  I'm sure that she'll get it as soon as she actually goes pee pee in her potty, but she eludes me.  The phone rang and I turned to look at the caller ID to make sure it wasn't my husband.  When I looked back, Little Miss is standing in a puddle with a half guilty, half relieved expression.  Per the book I give her a towel to clean up the accident and we talk about where pee pee goes and how yucky wet pants are and how we don't like wet pants.  I change her into a dry pair of pants and start plying her with drinks and snacks to help the process along.

After another hour, Little Miss takes advantage of another momentary distraction to make a puddle on the tile.  I do the routine and ask her, "Where do you go pee pee?"  "In my floor."  "NO.  We don't go pee pee in the floor.  We go pee pee in the potty."  She cocks her head and puts her hands on her tiny hips, "I just telling you."  Um, this is not going quite as I had hoped.

When my husband and older ones came home a couple of hours later, I was relieved to end the experiment.  But lest you think it was a total loss, let me tell you about yesterday.  I was sitting on the toilet and Little Miss came up to me and did a dry pants check.  Then she patted my knee encouragingly and said, "You pants are dry.  Good girl!"  Maybe we'll try again next month.