A Potty Training Story

Little Squirt, my baby, is now 5. He’s been a totally lovable handful his entire life, and I could not live without him. I need him like I need air. But he has had those moments, I’m telling you, when he has really tested my limits………

I’m a procrastinator. I prefer to put off until the last possible moment things that I don’t want to do. Which is why I waited to potty-train my last-born until he was well over 3 1/2.

I readily admit that it was a decision born out of sheer laziness on my part. Deplorable laziness. I had been through the potty-training process twice before with my other children, knew the commitment it required, understood the frustration it reaped, and so chose to put it off with Little Squirt as long as I possibly could. I was hoping that if I waited long enough, maybe Little Squirt would just kind of………potty-train himself? Like magic! I had visions that he would wake up one morning with the realization that diapers were totally uncool and only enlarged his posterior. He’d choose to wear his Spiderman undies and keep them dry all day, and then we’d celebrate this milestone together over chocolate milk. It would be a bonding mother/son moment. And that would be the end of that. I’d be retired from potty-training FOREVER!

But that fantasy did not unfold. So I finally succumbed to pressure from my husband and a certain relative, cleared a few days in my schedule, and began. So far, the whole potty-training process had gone really well. More than well. It had been going great! Fabulously great! Clearly, waiting to potty-train my son until he was on the upside of 4 had been THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Little Squirt and I had The Perfect Potty-Training Partnership, I believed. I could write a book on the subject! Provide inspiration and hope to parents everywhere! Little Squirt had kept his underwear dry for two whole days straight and I was very proud of him. He was showing wisdom and self-control, of the potty-training kind, beyond his years. He was obviously brilliant! Or so I thought, until one particular morning.

We got off to an early start that day, when he bellowed for me at 6am. My older two children were off at sleepovers, and my husband had left the house for an early appointment. I drank coffee and read the paper, and then realized, after Little Squirt’s second juice box, that I had better take him to the bathroom. We were a few feet away from our destination when he poured forth a flood the size of Lake Erie. “That’s oookaaay,” I said with feigned cheerfulness. “We’ll just clean it up and try to go sooner next time!” I plunked him onto his plastic potty-seat that lay over the toilet, and told him to “stay put” while I cleaned up the mess. Then I ran to get him a change of clothes.

While I was upstairs, I heard some “thumping noises” coming from the dining room. Knowing that I had left Little Squirt sitting on the toilet with explicit instructions not to move, I curiously went to the top of the stairs and looked down. And there, below me, was a sight to behold. I was dumb-founded. What the ??? My “brilliant” preschooler stood in the middle of the dining room, naked, with his potty-seat hanging around his neck. “It’s stuck, Mommy!” he whimpered as he tried unsuccessfully to pull it off. “Little Squirt, what were you thinking? Why did you put that over your head?” I asked. “I wanted to wear a hat!” came the answer.

Slightly amused and wondering if I should grab my camera to immortalize this moment, I took hold of the potty-seat and tried to bring it up over his head. It wouldn’t budge. I wiggled and jiggled it, trying to move it up at different angles. It wouldn’t move. Not a smidgen. Not an inch. The more I tried to pull it off his head, the more fussing and wriggling he did, and I was afraid I would injure him. The darned thing just wouldn’t come off! It really WOULD NOT go over his head! It appeared to be permanently stuck! Oh. My. Gosh. It was actually possible to get a toilet seat stuck on one’s head! Now I was starting to feel alarmed. How could I get this thing off him? Should I try shaving off his hair? What if the potty-seat was on him FOREVER??!!

“Okay, buddy, let’s just take a little break while I think this one out,” I said with a calmness I wasn’t feeling. I began to search my mind for solutions that didn’t involve extreme pain for him. I twizzled my hair and fretted. Think. Think think think. I twizzled and fretted some more. I thought harder. I played out several scenerios in my head.

First, I thought of calling a neighbor to help me. If I just had one other adult to hold Little Squirt still, I thought, I could try to force the potty-seat over his head. If it went on, then surely it must come off! And neighbors love to help each other, don’t they? That is what bonds community together. A crisis such as this. Yes, calling a neighbor was surely the answer!

And then I imagined my phone call:
“Hi Neighbor! It’s Kelly from down the street…….. Yes, the one that feeds the wild opossum on her porch. I realize it’s only 6:30am on this fine Saturday morning, but I have a bit of a situation with my child………”

No. Noooo. No way. I quickly dismissed that idea. As nice as my neighbors were, I feared that they, you know, might gossip. About my family. In a ridiculing kind of way. And I did not want this foolish antic from my household to be fodder for the neighborhood gossip mill. I usually prefer to keep our foolish antics on the “down low”.

And then I thought about taking Little Squirt to an Emergency Room. An ER would be open at this time. Surely the kind professionals who worked at an ER could deal with a problem such as this! They probably had all kinds of tools and devices that could cut this potty- seat safely off his neck with a minimum of fuss. It would be just another minor problem in their busy day. Yes, that was the solution! But then my imagination wandered some more.

I pictured myself sitting in the ER waiting room for hours with my three-year-old sitting on my lap; potty-seat dangling around his neck like some big, weird appendage. Strangers would gawk and laugh at us. We would be judged and mocked. It could scar us emotionally for days!

And I thought about the ER Doctor, who, with patronizing patience, would tell me (a pediatric nurse and veteran mother of three) the CORRECT way to use a potty-seat: “It goes on the OTHER END of your child, Mrs. M., and I’ll have the nurse come in with a doll to demonstrate the proper technique, just so you know.” And then I thought of handing my husband an enormous ER medical bill, which I was pretty certain Blue Cross would not cover.

No. Absolutely not. The Emergency Room was a very bad idea all around. Way too humiliating. I could not bear it.

I quickly scanned my mind and The Yellow Pages for other possibilities. Who could help with a problem such as this? Whom do I call?……… A locksmith? A beauty salon? A plumber?? Hatmaker??? Think think think. My panic increased and my possible “solutions” began bordering on the ridiculous.

“Pweeze help me, Mommy!” Little Squirt pleaded, bringing me back from my anxious thoughts. “Ok, my child,” I said determinedly, “I will get this potty-seat off you myself if I have to use Daddy’s chain saw!” My adrenaline soared.

And then…….call it Divine Inspiration; call it The Crazy Idea of a Mother Who Was Out Of Other Ideas; call it what you will. My eyes caught sight of a very large jar of Vaseline that was sitting on the bathroom counter. It seemed to glow with all the brightness of the Northern Lights on a clear summer evening. I had a “Halleluiah” moment!!

I grabbed that jar, and told Little Squirt we were going to have some fun. I plastered him all over his hair and neck with the petroleum jelly. Then I grasped my child in a tight hold, mustered up all the strength that I could, and sent off a quick prayer. I pulled and maneuvered….pulled some more and twisted the potty-seat around his neck. Little Squirt stayed miraculously still, God moved in His heaven, all the planets aligned……. and with a loud sucking sound, the potty-seat came over his head.

“Ow! My ears hurt!” Little Squirt screeched, then scurried off to play, his hair sticking up in a greasy, spiky “do”.

I held that potty-seat, slimy with Vaseline, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief. And I thought about how smug I’d been about Little Squirt's “success”. And how I would never in my life forget the sight of him: completely nude except for the potty-seat he wore around his neck. And I was reminded about why I deplore potty-training. It’s really never easy. Not ever. Do it early or do it late. No matter. It’s always just difficult. But at least this would make a great story for his baby book.