**WARNING** A Mom Moment on the Blog!

I know there are all kinds of new appropriate terms for potty training. Potty teaching, potty learning. I'm here to say folks, considering the volume of fruit snacks I handed out after this kid piddled, getting a kid to use the toilet is the kind of operant conditioning that would make even B.F. Skinner proud. Consequently, (get it behaviorist fans? Consequence?) I will refer to this experience as what it is...training.

I must confess I did not potty train my first two kids. My mom had A in underwear in a weekend and E was in childcare and they handled all of that. So really, L was my first kid I've ever endured this with (yes, I said endured) Many of my friends and family offered advice. Some was great--like waiting until he made a move for the toilet. Some was...interesting--like making him nap with his dirty underwear on? I think that's punishment for me, not him!

Here's what I went with:

1.Go a few days naked (you'd be surprising how cumbersome clothes can be to a three year old who needs to pee). 

2. Wait until he's 3 and a quarter. I tried earlier--I really did, however this resulted in what I now call "The Post Office Incident" where Luke, peed on a pile of flat rate boxes, looked at the long line of snickering soldiers picking up Christmas packages and declared, "I peed a lot. Can you do that?" It was a literal pissing contest. This3.25 idea seriously worked though. I had it marked on my calendar from the moment a friend mentioned it! 

3. Fruit snacks. I decided to use the fruit snacks. Some friends suggested candy or cookies, but frankly, I admit, these are not novel food items in our home. Fruit snacks though--they're gold. Not only are they chemically delicious for kiddos, they come in strange little shapes which resemble popular cartoon characters.

My next step was gathering supplies.

This is what I thought I needed:

It wasn't enough. This kid was a hot mess. You want a study on prepositions? This kid had human waste above, aboard, across, against, beyond, beneath...you catch my drift. It was not pretty. And it's a tedious job, one that requires incredible focus, because you have to be careful not to wipe the kid with the lysol wipe, or more importantly, the toilet with the baby wipe, because that thing doesn't clean worth a crap (pun intended). My bathroom has never been this clean ever, because it was disinfected at least three times a day...scratch that, the whole house was disinfected. As most of you know, my kids span from three-13. A had a friend over one day--as the older boys did what older boys do (I was going to say smoking and joking, but they pretty much are gaming and joking),  I hear A yell, "What the $#@* (h, not f) L." I flew into the living room, not thrilled with the language, but more motivated by the sound of disbelief in A's voice. There stood--wait--there squatted L. Grinning wildly as he shat (yes, I said shat) on my living room rug. "Mommy!" he declared, "I a big boy!" Thank goodness A had a friend over, because all I could muster, in my best teacher voice was, "Oh L, big boys don't defecate (yes, I said defecate) on the living room rug." His response? "I didn't debatate. I pooped."
So yes, quickly I determined the below photo is much more representative of the potty training journey.

L was not having the traditional potty chair with some special wipes and soap. He was not sitting in a "baby seat" on the floor, he wanted to sit on the bog boy toilet like A! I was willing to do anything to never change a diaper again, so pushed aside the $25 potty chair and invested in a $18 toilet apparatus that sits right on the top and makes the toilet a bit smaller. He was happy--it was great!

We did not venture out for weeks. Then we did. And realized, despite our best efforts, he was terrified of the big, ominous toilets at the mall. At the community center. At friends' homes. I lamented to a friend (because ANY of my friends will assure you this is all I have been capable of talking about for weeks). She said, "Get a foldable seat for this diaper bag." I didn't even know these existed! I searched high. I searched low. I searched Wal-Mart. I found one. A travel potty seat. It was purple. With Tinkerbell and her other fairy friends on it. I brought it home--opened it. L loves it. It is by far his favorite potty training supply.

I can't wait for my brave, manly husband to come home from war and proudly watch his son sit to pee on his purple Tinkerbell potty seat...and wipe with a square of toilet paper.

So yes, the last two weeks have been an experience. But we did it. No more diapers. Not at night, not during the day. I'm sure we'll have some accidents...y'all know I love me some metaphors, and this experience with L has had many connections to life...the idea of two steps forward, three steps back. The questioning of self--am I doing this right? Isn't he supposed to stand when he does this? The feeling of personal failure when someone says, "UhOh!" (so notices a failure) as he pees all over the floor during the Girl Scout Cookie Booth lotto. But you know what happens? Just like in life, when you surround yourself by quality people, the person who noticed the failure hands you the paper towels and smiles. You don't stress about the not standing, because at least he's making progress. You come to expect..and maybe even savor a little bit, the backwards movement, because forward movement means change you might just not be ready for.