This is dedicated to Hillary Bolander, who has bravely embarked on a potty training odyssey with yet another child. Hillary, may you never run out of green M&M's!
I wrote this while potty training my youngest child. We (or should I say "I") had some really bad moments during the process. Hopefully, he doesn't remember any of this. For some reason, getting it down on paper made me feel better about everything. Well, almost everything.
Day One
When the diapers run out again,
consider the cost, the age of the child.
Remember how you wanted to hook up to the Internet. So tired of everyone saying, “You don’t
have email? How do you
exist?” You’re starting to wonder
the same thing.
Cost of Internet: $24.95. Cost of monthly expenditure on diapers: $36.00. Age of child: quickly approaching four.
Time to potty train.
When you take the child by hand and
show him the big boy underpants, be gentle. Talk in your best sweet mother voice. And whatever you do, try not to sound
desperate. Kids hear that itch in
your voice and know you are in danger of losing that last silvery string of
sanity that you keep under the socks in your top drawer. Think of what to say before something
spills out of your mouth. Write it
down if you have to. Just
remember: remain noncommittal.
Look, you say, pointing to the empty diaper box. We’ve run out. There’s nothing but Elmo underpants to
put on. The child will stare at the box for a long time. You’ve tried this potty training thing
before, only to go out and buy a super mega pack of diapers at the super mega
store approximately two hours and five tinkle spills after starting. The child’s bladder must be the size of
a shriveled pea.
“Let’s
go to the store and get more,” he will say, smiling.
Do not budge. Don’t even blink. And whatever you do, don’t yell. This is a test, only a test—a minor interruption in
your regular programming. Do not
panic. Three days, you tell
yourself. Give it three days. And if that doesn’t work, the Internet
can wait.
Only
you’re sick of waiting for the Internet.
“Ok, let’s go to the store,” you say. Take him shopping and let him
choose his favorite candy. Then
tell him he can’t have it unless he tinkles in the toilet. Stop thinking about the parenting books
that warn against bribing kids to cooperate. The people who write those things have never lived with your
child twenty-four seven. You know
from experience that everything that works on paper never works once the sun
comes up and the husband leaves and the kitchen’s a mess and someone’s punching
someone else and the phone’s ringing and the cat’s been run over by a car and
your oldest has just informed you that he just stepped in doggy doo-doo and
didn’t realize it until he saw the smelly smears on the new carpet. No, the authors of parenting books do
not have any idea how to deal with kids like yours.
Unfortunately,
neither do you.
Back to the potty
trainee and the store. As the
child stands in front of a half-pound bag of M&M’s he looks at you again
with a tilt of his head, his eyes narrow and wise like the family cat. You feel like he’s sizing you up,
perhaps trying to figure out if you’re serious or not. Look back. Smile normally, not that perma- smile you do when you’re
trying not to explode after the kids have broken something or someone for the
umpteenth time, but a smile that you’d use on a friend. You know, a genuine expression of
happiness. Try not to tap your
foot or tell the child to hurry up.
Ignore the slow ache developing behind your eyes from the fluorescent
lights reflecting on the linoleum floor.
What is he thinking? Why
won’t he say anything? Quick! Make a deal. Say: M&M’s
for tinkle, Rolos for poops, ok?
Hustle. You’re in charge
here.
“Ok,” the child
will say, without any real confidence.
Clap your hands and skip to the register.
You’re on your
way. Take a deep breath. Cross your fingers. But don’t hope to die. And resist the urge, whatever happens,
to stick a needle in your eye.
Day Two
The next morning, the child refuses
to sit on the toilet. Diapers
all gone, you remind him. He cries. A part of you understands. You know how disappointing it is to find another grey hair
sprouting like a weed from your scalp, or how mystifying it is to discover yet
another body part sagging southward.
Party’s over. Time to grow
up. Time to consider what is lost,
what is gained with each passing year.
Sometimes, you know, the two don’t even out.
Say to the child: Time
to wear big boy underpants. Use a bright voice, like this is some
kind of party. The child flops
against his bed and sobs, gulping mouthfuls of air. Remain calm.
Shrug, strap a diaper to him, then leave well enough alone. Lay on your own bed eating licorice and
cry silently until the middle child knocks on the door and asks where you’ve
hidden the candy, at which point you stop eating said licorice and hand him the
package.
When the potty
training child finally lets you change his diaper around lunchtime, squishy
clear beads of disintegrating diaper cling to his behind. He reeks of boy tinkle, sharp and
pungent like vinegar. The
rest of the day, ask him to sit on the toilet. He’ll yell NO! and thrash on the floor, cling to the
doorframe as you drag him to the little blue plastic chamber pot that his two
older brothers peed in a few years before. Even though he’s small, he’s strong. His fleshy arms and dimpled fists have
surprising power as he punches you in the gut. And then you know what happens next. “Wet!” he’ll say, his voice drowning in
shock as his pants fill with warm urine.
Do not finish
these words: Son of a . . . because he is the son of you. And though you suspect that at times
the end of this phrase describes you to a tee, you don’t want to admit that
right now.
Great.
Now you feel
guilty. Add this moment to the
list of things your kids’ future therapist might need to know.
Day Three
Time: 10:42 am.
Underpants and pants washed: 5.
Poops in toilet: zip.
Accidents: Lost count.
Resilience: low.
Annoyance: high.
Yell at subject when he stands
three inches from bathroom door and pees on carpet. You hear it from the kitchen, the heavy stream hitting the
rug. The oldest lounges on the
couch reading a Hardy Boys book.
“Mom, you better come see this,” he says in a tone reserved for
tattling. The subject stands in a
potty lake and grins, his Elmo underpants dark and damp, the smell of vinegar
urine strong. “You are so D---
hard to potty train!” you shriek, hurling a plastic farmhouse over the
stairs. You hear the farmhouse bang into the
walls, the cows and chickens clattering down seven steps before landing with a
smashing clunk at the bottom.
Oops.
All three kids look at you with an
expression of fear and curiosity.
You remember a friend telling you how his mother went crazy one
day. “She picked up everything
red—pencils, papers, socks on the floor—and threw it all in the trash,” he
said. “I just watched her from the
corner.” That night, she checked
into the local mental hospital.
For a second, you
wonder if this is your moment to dial 911 on your own behalf. It’s surprising how for years
everything can seem normal until one day you pluck the last straw from your
storehouse of sanity and toss it in the composting bin. You wonder what it would be like to
give in to the emotions that flicker through your mind. You wonder what keeps a person together
and what makes a person shatter. You wonder if this is your time to crack into a million pieces.
This is the moment
when you really look at the kids.
The youngest seems confused.
His lips quiver and collapse into a frown. He won’t look you in the eye. He won’t speak.
His shoulders droop as you wipe streaks of pee from his skinny
legs. Suddenly he seems so little
and fragile.
Please
God, you plead, don’t let me
break.
Miraculously, you
don’t. You clean up the mess. You press your foot against the ugly hot
pink towel designated for pee and puke to soak up the spill in silence. When the towel is heavy and wet, say,
“Good enough.” Put a video on for the kids, and lay down to wait for your husband to come home, at which time you plan
to say something like, “Your life is so easy.”
But you never get
to say this because once horizontal, you fall asleep.
Day Four
You wake up the next morning and
decide to give up. Save the
Internet money for diapers and a few sessions with your favorite psychologist,
the one who also does massage therapy and makes you cry at every appointment.
The youngest
approaches, hands intertwined, naked from the waist down, looking shy like he does when old
ladies try to talk to him at the grocery store. “I went tinkle in the toilet.” His voice is so quiet.
Unusual for one who yells, even when he’s two inches away.
You blink. “What?”
The
child holds out a plump hand and stretches his fingers. “Gimme candy,” he says. “I tinkled in the toilet.”
We have lift
off! Give the child a handful of
M&M’s, a Rolo, a big kiss.
Yelp like a cowgirl and dance around your son like he’s just won the
Pulitzer. When he grins, remember
how broken he looked when you screamed at him the night before. Hug the stuffing out of him to make up
for it, even though you know it can’t possibly. Marvel at his genius. Holler, "Today tinkle, tomorrow Latin!"
Tonight, get down on your knees and pray that it will last. Pray also
that if it doesn’t, if the child succumbs to the convenience of
pee-where-you-are disposables, slipping deeper into toddlerhood, you’ll
remember one thing: the Internet isn’t everything. But your child is.
