With a four day weekend tantalizingly ahead of us, my husband and I discussed how we could fill that time. A short getaway to Montreal? Shopping for much-needed furniture perhaps? Sleeping in?
Wrong!
While those things sound fantastic we're now knee-deep in this parenting gig and that means that our precious stretch of "free" time would have to be filled up with more important things. Things like teaching a 2.9 year old the art of making "pee-pee" and "poo-poo" in the "potty."
(Those of you looking for some erudite discussion on...anything really should cut your loses and click away now.)
Yes my friends, this would be the weekend that our toddler would be potty trained SO HELP US GOD.
We were optimistic as we started the process Thursday morning. We gave Sebastian his first pair of big boy pants -- teeny tiny blue Bob The Builder underpants.
"Such a big boy!" We cooed with proud tears in our eyes. "No more diapers for you! You tell us when you have to make pee-pee, OK?"
"I big boy!" he said, and ran off to play in the living room.
My baby. Gone! Just like that.
Except that my husband spent the entire day changing our son's clothes and mopping the floors. Because our big boy thought that he was supposed to tell us he had peed AFTER the fact. He did this over and over again.
Thankfully there was a turkey keeping me busy all day, so I simply couldn't be bothered with the unsavory job of cleaning up after a pottier-in-training. I only tell you this so I can include a picture of the fruit of my labors:
My mother asked for evidence that I can indeed roast a turkey. This one's for you Mom!
(and Martha Stewart)
(OK, so my Lil' Butterball looks a little bit naked. It needs some dressing it up, don't you think? But that's neither here nor there.)
As you may have guessed, Friday wasn't spent shopping for bargains. I was busy sprinting between the laundry room and the potty room all while keeping Sebastian off the furniture.
Saturday was more of the same. Except that we gave up just a tiny bit and put diapers on the boy, since we still had to catch up on all the laundry from the first two days. Oh, and Sebastian had not pooped once since this whole ordeal began. Things were not looking good.
I woke up on Sunday determined to give my husband the "we gave it a shot, but clearly he's not ready and we should try again later" speech because I was tired of this. I was trying to figure exactly when "later" would be (would his 15th birthday be too late?) when Sebastian jumped up from the breakfast table and announced, "I need to go potty! I need potty!"
Off we went, and lo, there was much pee-pee and poo-poo in the potty. And there was much rejoicing and videotaping and many long-distance calls were placed where a child's squeaky voice exclaimed:
"I use the potty! YAY!"
And there was much flushing and very little diapering happily ever after.
Don't you just love happy endings?
