If I am going to embarrass and offend my children by posting pictures of them on the toilet out here in the wild blue internet, then I guess I better just offend them all equally. What are we waiting for?
First there was Boudreaux, my child on the road to Rice University, where the smart folks go. He had his books on the crapper from day one.
Next came Rufus, who would prefer to sit and talk about it rather than actually squeeze it out. Sometimes, even now, he will sit on the throne for an hour playing with his...video games and other stuff. Every President needs his podium. Below, he is telling Aunt Choc about his universal health care plan.
Then came our precious Magoo, who caught on a whole year and a half sooner than those boys did. After having two who refused to consider anything but pooping straight into their britches until each was three years old (actually, Rufus got trained a couple of months before that because, by God, he was READY for preschool at the church and he had to be potty trained to go! He had no option.). But not our Sweetness Her Hineyness Princess Magoo. She wants to be like all the big people.
Because of all her interest but still cynically not expecting any miracles, I went ahead and bought a potty. No music or flashing lights like these fancy modern potties come with...that stuff would be enough to scare that turtle right back up into its shell if you get my drift. No, Magoo and I picked out a plain one. We brought it home. I had no expectations. It sat in the box for two days...because I had no expectations. Saturday morning, while the boys were off on adventures, she and I took it out of the box and talked about it a lot. Still, no expectations. We got it all snapped together and of course, she dropped trou and plunked her little peachy booty right down. Then she ordered me to go get some books. Could we have another one on the road to RU here? Of course, I do whatever she tells me.
Back with the books, I sat beside her and we read two. The she stood up, and she had PEED! She didn't quite understand why her mother threw such a holy cat-nip-shun and started dancing and screaming. In fact, at first, she was a little frightened. We talked a lot about what all that meant. At its heart, this was just a wonderful coincidence (that she happened to pee while we were reading).
Since Saturday, she has sat and waited and been successful one other time. She has also gotten up to get a toy and peed on the bathroom floor (Boudreaux cleaned it up without any drama...because just like the rest of us, he is putty in her hands). She also peed on the floor once when I had gone to get a book. So, we are by no means sporting a perfect record here.
Look how little she is! Her feet don't touch the ground.
So tonight, I get her into her nighttime diaper (extra junk to absorb all that stuff) and send her to kiss her Boppa (Daddy) good night while I tuck in the boys. After a couple of minutes, she comes running back yelling "pee pee! pee pee!" Well, over the past few days, I have noticed two new habits with our precious. First, she mimics everything I do. If I wash my hands, she washes her hands. If I pick up and put away books, she does the same. If I am working in the kitchen, she wants to do that same stuff, too. Enough to make a Mama tear up. Second, she has started yelling "pee pee!" every time she lets loose even a teaspoon in her diaper. I guess she wants me to change her at the first sign of any wetness...but with gas prices like they are, I am way too cheap for that. We will get OUR MONEY'S WORTH out of those paper crapcatchers! If I'm sending it to the landfill, then it's going to be a serious contribution.
So when this evening's event happened, I played nice and asked her if she wanted to sit on the potty. She, of course, said yes. She wants to do that any time it gets her some attention (which is any time she wants because we are all a bunch of blithering idiots in her presence). She pulled her own PJs down, and I removed her diaper (still dry). She sat down and commanded me to go get a book.
Well, all this thinking about pee made me need to go, too. That's the whole "mones" theory at work...whenever someone else talks about peeing or pooping, you get the "mones" (like fer-e-mones, those bits of scent and stuff that attract animals to one another) and have to go yourself. See what a valuable education you get by reading this blog? So there I was getting the pee-mones and sitting on top of the toilet lid anyway. I told her to hang on a minute for that book, that "Mama has to go 'SHHH'," which, when you hold your finger up to your lips like your saying "shhhh" means Mama is about to pee. We say "shhh" because that means to listen, so she knows something is going on (a.k.a. the tinkle sound). Otherwise, she thinks that going butt-on-seat just means that you get to play with the toilet paper and put big wads of it into the pot.
So there I uncovered and "shhh"ed. To which she held her fingers up to her lips and said "shhh" back to me. Mimicking everything I do...so, just to humor her, I said, "Mama pee peed. Did you pee pee?" and she nodded yes. Then she stood up and SHE HAD! This time it was on purpose! YEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAA!
I am still not expecting miracles, but this was a GOOD DAY.
Stay tuned for more breaking crapper news as it happens.
