The Travails of Training

Have you ever had a kid who just INSISTED they were ready to potty-train, only to refuse to follow the "Rules" of the potty?  You know, those silly little rules like,

'Don't poop in your hand, poop goes IN the toilet.'

or how about 'Why are you naked AGAIN? We don't get naked to go pee!'

and my personal favorite 'Poop is NOT an art medium.'

God knew what he was doing when he made sure that poop washes out.  Now some might think me blasphemous to say that, but you know what?  If it didn't wash out, we'd all be walking around alot dirtier and smellier.  Think about it.


Aaand we're BACK.  Hope you had fun contemplating a world where poo doesn't wash out. 

So, as moms (I trust the vast majority of people reading my inane babblings are women and/or mothers), we KNOW that to potty train, one must basically give up life as they know it for however long it takes to train said child.  This is in order to drop everything every 15 minutes to plop that cute little tushie on the pot and PRAISE THE HECK out of simply remaining semi-stationary on the pot for longer than 2.02 seconds.  Bribery of the first degree (in our house, 1 M&M) for staying on it until mommy says.  Bribery second degree (2 M&Ms) if pee makes it into the bowl in any way.  Third degree bribery for poop. 

I have to tell you, this kid is stubborn!  He announces he has to pee, but has never, not one single solitary time, peed on the toilet.  He can sit there till the cows come home and hold it.  But as soon as the air outside the bathroom hits his little butt-cheeks, it's like, well, Niagara Falls or something.  I don't get it.

I also don't get how I can manage to get him to poop on the pot, thereby earning his 3 M&Ms, but he still wants to fish?!  EW!  The other 2 never did this crap! They never finger-painted with excrement either, so it's all new.  Of course, they did not train until later either.  TT1 was 2.5 and TT2 was pushing 3 before he decided to get on board with the potty thing.  This whole insistence on big-boy stuff by the not-2-year-old is crazy, and more than a little sad.

My baby doesn't want to be a baby anymore, and is bent on leaving babydom as soon as possible, aided by the (questionable) experience of his older brothers.

Wow.  For a split second there, I actually thought about another baby, wistfully.  Then somebody screamed, somebody else wailed and everybody started tattling, so there goes that nightmare daydream.

Dang it, now I'm rambling again.  Bottom line is, potty training sucks.  I can no longer laugh at my poor cousin, who has 2 poo-painters.  I find myself considering roasting in the yard all day simply to enable the kid to run naked and water the plants and save myself some carpet cleaning.  I remember fondly the days I could change a wiggly infant on my lap, and the thought of stripping naked never crossed his little mind. 

I...oops.  It's time to pee.  Or maybe poop.  Or not. One just never knows.