The Toddler Chronicles, No. 19
I think it’s time to push potty training.
When Gabby and I were potty training Lyla, we tried it early. She seemed to understand the concept of it but not the execution. Actually, I’m pretty sure I wrote about that story here.
Anyway, that Lyla has been successfully potty trained. Now we just need to do it again with Charlotte.
A few days ago, we were upstairs in our big room. I asked Charlotte if she needed to potty, and she said no. She still had a diaper on.
A few minutes later, I turned around from whatever I was doing to see her walking toward me—pantsless and diaperless—carrying her diaper like it was a fragile baby bird about to tumble out of her hands.
“Daaaadyyyy, I pooped!” she happily announced.
As the open diaper inched closer to me, I realized that she had, in fact, pooped. A lot. It was a very full, near-gelatinous production.
I’m still not sure how she managed to take it off without accidentally dispersing the contents onto herself or the floor, like trying to open a burrito bowl while riding shotgun in an off-road golf cart down a country road.
Anyway, I carefully relieved her of the undetonated crap claymore and thanked her for her service. I replaced the diaper and reminded her to use the potty next time.
Not five minutes later, she stood in front of me, planted her feet wide, squatted like she was riding an invisible horse, and grunted. Hard.
Then she took off that diaper, brought it to me, and said, “Daaaady! I peed!”
Sure enough, she peed.
I asked why she didn’t go in the potty, since I had just reminded her, and she replied, “No potty! Diaper!”
So that time, I put her in actual underwear and gave her the “don’t pee on the couch” spiel, which she definitely understood. She protested, requested a diaper again, and I explained that underwear would help her remember to go to the potty.
I also reminded her every four minutes to pee in the potty and that if she didn’t, the couch would get wet and she’d need new clothes.
Fast-forward fifteen minutes: she sat on the potty, grunted, didn’t actually pee, and went back to the couch. Five minutes later, she came to inform me that she had peed all on her own.
All. On. The. Couch.
While I was changing her, I asked why she didn’t just pee in the potty. She stomped her foot, shouted, “No potty, Daddy! No underwear! Diaper!”—and then ran off, pantsless, to retrieve one.
Perhaps it’s time we start pushing potty training a bit more… thoroughly.