We’ve done this before, my wife and I. We’ve got two girls who are eight and ten, and they both somehow are completely divorced from their diapers and have been for some time. I remember how our eldest was pretty stubborn about it for a long time, but one day she just made up her mind to start using the potty, and so she did it. After that, we had very few problems with accidents, even at night or in the car.
Our second daughter, following hard upon her older sister, was very anxious to learn to use the potty, and did so with great alacrity.
So why is it so hard this time?
Our youngest daughter, who will be three on the first of October, is if anything more stubborn than our first one. Oh, she’ll go on the potty. For her daytime care provider she will. For a piece of candy she will. For the sheer joy of flushing the toilet she will.
But to put the stuff (you know, the numbered stuff) where it needs to go? “No!” is the answer I’ve grown accustomed to.
Tonight was a hard night… rough day of work, and a rough day once work was over. My wife decided to take a long evening nap after getting home, leaving me alone to make dinner, do some laundry, and get our girls bathed and to bed (carefully working around the all-important episode of “Yu-Gi-Oh!” on Cartoon Network, of course)… and did I mention I was also trying to defrag and optimize my work laptop?
All in all, I did fairly well. All three girls are clean and fed and currently snoozing in their beds. They got to watch “Yu-Gi-Oh!” and even “Jackie Chan Adventures.” I helped the eight-year-old with her math homework and listened to the ten-year-old try to play her new (rented, for the moment) clarinet. She doesn’t know the stops yet… but that’s OK. The laptop is now defragging as I type this, and laundry is having a good old time in the dryer.
And as the night progressed, every half hour or so I looked our youngest child in the eyes and asked, “Do you have to go to the potty?”
Answers ranged from a lighthearted “Nooooooo…” (often with a giggle) to a vehement “NO!” (with a distinct scowl) – but the message was clear: “The potty is not required at this time, my good father.” Fair enough.
And yet, while cooking dinner, our sweet little baby comes to me and says the code words: “I steenkywet.” She’s wet her training pants. Sure enough… not too bad, but definitely wet. Off go the training panties, into the washer. I wiped her down and put her on the toilet… a little too late, obviously. Then I let her go commando until bathtime, continuing to ask her if she had to go often.
Still, the potty was not required.
Then, just after the other two were in bed and I was cleaning up dishes, I hear the other, more dreaded code-word: “It’s yucky!” Hoping she just found a dead spider or something, I turn… and there she is, standing over a nice shiny new turd on the floor. She points to it. “Yucky.”
Yeah… yeah it is.
Paper towel, grab the thing (luckily, not a runny one), take child and the offending object to the bathroom, and show her that it goes in the toilet. Not on the floor, in the toilet.
Repeat that: Not floor. Potty. Deposit the item and flush it down for her to see.
She nods her head and sits on the potty. I pull off her dress (surprisingly, untouched) and start filling the bathtub, then go out to clean up any… debris from the floor. Child gets a bath, a diaper, and a nightgown, and goes to bed with remarkably little fuss.
I pop into the bedroom to get some clothes ready for her for tomorrow, and find that the cat has managed to get a great deal of her cat litter out of the box and onto the floor in front of the box. Joy. I thought all the cats had grown out of that particular habit. Do I need to work on them too?
Still on the slate for me tonight: A quick spate with the vacuum to get the cat litter, and a late-night run to the store for some toilet paper. Nobody told me we were out until – well – we were out. Maybe my other kids aren’t as potty-trained as I think.
Yup, that’s me. I’m a dad. I clean up after everyone else’s shit.