me: “Okay, not bad. Now, concentrate on your aim. Or else, give me some advance warning that you plan to let things fly, and I’ll stretch you a canvas. After all, we may as well turn a profit on this thing—and if you can squeeze off a pattern that looks even remotely like Mother Theresa, we can make a killing, after which you can soil yourself until the cows come home, and the new bohemians will simply nod sagely and embrace you as a charming eccentric.
“And—even better—I can stop hanging out in the john with you trying to coax out your waste. Because I gotta tell you, kid: all things considered, I’d rather be watching ‘Law & Order’ reruns and eating me some delicious trail mix.”
****
update:
boy: “Daddy, made poopy!”
me: “You sure did! But—and, I’m not criticizing you here, understand—but how exactly did you get it into your hair?”
Hey, I feel your pain: I’ve been giving my toddler potty training this week. One thing I failed to consider: to a small boy in a city with Southern heat and humidity, the opportunity to seat himself on the commode a la George Costanza is just too tempting. He periodically just starts saying, “pobby, pobby,” in the hope that he can get naked and read a book.
Although, come to think of it, I do that, too. The read a book on the john part, that is.
I mean, I do stay CLOTHED for pete’s sake.
Just be careful that the kid stays comfortable; if you accidentally put him in a stress position, Andrew Sullivan will have a conniption, and you know what he’s like when that happens.
ahh….the joys of potty training.
Don’t worry, it will soon be done and then you can start over with a lil Jefferina!!…or something.
My daughter decided she wanted to be able to peepee like Daddy, and proceeded to spray the entire bathroom.
My 2 year old daughter and I fight about this every day. Can’t you hire someone to train this potty thing?
TODD – I found that after I allowed my daughter to attempt to peepee standing up a few times, my wife quickly relieved me of potty training duties. This concept worked well attempting to get out of wedding planning, when I hired the One Man Band, geaturing the accordion and harmonica.
As the father of a boy aged 3 years & 4 months, I empathize. Although with Wes it’s not so much spraying the #1 as it is getting up halfway through dropping a deuce to gauge the process, resulting in large smears.
Not pretty.
“This is looking more and more like the Bush administration’s domestic version of Iraq: a big risky gamble, based on wishful thinking and nonexistent administrative competence that will end in disaster?â€Â
-May16th Kausfiles from slate magazine.
Dead on analogy for this debacle. The only way Bush can cement his legacy as the dumbest president in history is with Domestic Iraq. He wants to mess up our country like he has messed up our foreign policy.
We have to secure the borders over there so we don’t have to secure em over here. Where can I sign up to secure Iraq’s borders??
http://www.slate.com/id/2166678/
Appropriate steaming pile to drop in a thread on potty training, acroso.
Heh. Try it with twins.
‘Nuff said.
BDS truly knows no bounds. A post about potty training a child leads to a boilerplate moonbat rant, pimping a link to slate. Here’s to hoping that acroso’s children never learn where the toilet is located.
Well, the subject was human waste being sprayed about.
“Look Daddy! Poopie!”
Thank Bog that’s over. Nowadays it more like “Look Dad! Hot broads!”
Which I prefer, though some (hi honey!) would disagree.
Jeff-
Try a little game I like to call “sink the cheerio”. It’s fun and it can lower the toilets cholesteral. And I know your a giver.
Other day I had the cute little bugger walk into my office while I was on the phone with a customer. He was not wearing pants and had crap on his hands and four foot of TP crammed into his buttcheeks.
His Mom was “at the store” or something like that, now I remember why I used to drive to an office every day.
My 2YO boy started whizzing in the little plastic portable toilet this week. Still waiting on the first deuce, and then, with a little time, a little luck and a lot of carpet cleaner, this will be, for the first time in almost six long years, a…Diaper…Free…Zone!
Words cannot express.
On another note, I’m betting that a little (well, medium-sized) portable plastic toilet would be really handy during the Spurs’ clinching game tonight!
Next: “Scenes from the laundry tub.”
“I know you don’t like it, but if you ‘make poopy’ like that again you’ll be here again. Now, do it like I told you or I’m duct-taping you to that potty-seat.”
home88
Is it too late to consider splashing some lamb’s blood on the front door and fleeing to Tiajuana with a major credit card? I’m sure the ‘dillo has suggested that more than once.
So Slate is spamming PW in a bid for traffic? Either they’re in (you should pardon the expression) deep doo-doo, or this site is in much better shape than Jeff seems to think.
There must be 12 million people waiting to do this–it’s just got to be one of the “jobs Americans won’t do.”
Nuke ‘em
I hear ya, even though my twins are grandsons… I fielded the frantic stratgy calls and did a lot of the work over weekends of watching ‘em.
Potty training is relatively easy … the difference I’m finding between boys and girls is that my grandsons absolutely love to find any excuse to take a whiz outside.
Darleen – After riding horses this weekend, my daughter dropped trow in the corral, and was going to drop a deuce. I tried to explain that was not appropriate. She replied by telling me, “Cody (her horse) does it! “. The logic of children …
And “taking a whiz” outside never grows old.
And “taking a whiz†outside never grows old.
Proving definitively that God is a male. I mean, wimmins ain’t plumbed for camping, and camping rox.
There’s a reason why our pioneer grannies wore long, full skirts…
Ah, potty training. My son is potty trained everywhere but at home, mostly. He has a bit of a competitive streak, so we use it against him, I mean to help motivate him. When it’s about that time, we’ll get him to go by “racing” him to the bathroom. This is what we have to do at home, for number one. He decided long ago that a deuce in the drawers was unpleasant for all involved, and thankfully drastically curtailed that. Now, when we’re out, we don’t need to do any of that, especially in restaurants. There he goes to the potty every ten minutes. It’s a joy.
Had 2 girls….easier than Paris Hilton to toilet train, but I thank Yahweh I never had a boy to go through that with!!
One funny story though, My youngest thought she’d go potty in the “big boys” seat….wellsir, I had to rescue her out of it…she DIDN’T put the seat down!!! You should have seen her…all folded up. But did I laugh? NOT then and there, but later? Hell,I’m laughing as I type!!
Babies and toddlers have figured out how to defy several laws of physics with bodily functions. No more trying to figure out how poop made it halfway up their back, out of the diaper. Now it’s trying to explain a splatter pattern in the bathroom that would stump any of the CSI guys…
My son set some kind of American record for late potty training for a non-disabled child. Nothing would persuade him to use the little plastic potty. Despite what the pediatician said, we thought he’d graduate from high school wearing a diaper.
The nice thing. though, was that when he finally decided on his own to ditch the diaper, there was no looking back–no accidents, no messes, no frantic runs to the mall restroom.
I so don’t miss potty training; I did diapers on one child or another for over ten years straight. I do miss those cool cloth diapers I had though.
If I pass potty training I’ll never be able to write for The Nation…
What, was he six when he potty trained? My son is 4.75, and we still have frantic runs to the mall restroom. And stupid Flatirons Crossing only has one bathroom and they’re a LONG trek from the play area, especially if you have another little one in a stroller and can’t take the escalator.
I just realized how monomaniacal this post is.
Excuse me.
Or is that too demanding? Of me?
Ha!! #4 daughter turns 20 in a couple of months [let me pause a moment in abject horror at reality of my baby poised to start her junior year at SFSU] and I still have a small stack of jealously horded cloth diapers in the linen closet.
If you need new cloth diapers you can get them in the automotive dept of Wal-Mart. Or head on over to Advanced Auto.
Mrs. Lost My cookies used to make prettified burp rags out of them with ribbons and such.
TW: She’s full of good patriarcical ideas22
When my brother was done my dad kicked the diaper pail over the garage.
He got it back and uses it to store garage rags. He’s thrifty like that.
Alice,
Not true re: restrooms. There’s one behind the Dairy Queen just across the food court from the play area, as well as the one near Nordstrom. Also, all the major department stores (Macy’s, Nordstrom, Dillard’s) have restrooms.
To a child everything is a medium of expression.
Someday you’ll back fondly on these memories.
Thanks for this post. I am still laughing. We are trying to potty train our 7th child who has significant disabilities and I really needed the humor break!
Don’t know if we’ll ever get there, but it felt good to laugh along the way…