My Wife, Writer & Potty Trainer By Day, Dance Instructor By Night

Jenny is such a good writer, you would think that she'd do blog posts more often. Alas, that is not the case. She sent me an email this morning recounting some of her adventures. It was not only a great story, but so well told that I had to post it here!

Aaron woke up with a dry diaper as I jumped on the chance to potty train him fully aware of the risks I was undertaking. Fate confirmed my decision by not providing any diapers for me in his bedroom. I allowed him to wander amuck, bladder full, without any protection. My easy morning of casual cinnamon roll baking and egg scrambling immediately became a race against the bladder clock.

Aaron turned down my suggestion to pee in the boy’s bathroom toilet. Frankly, I don’t blame him. That filthy place looks unsafe to me and I have peed in a bailer bucket on a slimy fish boat in the middle of the ocean. Noting the need to clean the toilet I scurried about trying to find the one of the 3 potty training toilets that Aaron might actually be willing to sit on. The one seat that has proven most popular was luckily stored closest. I pulled it out, reassembled it and wandered about trying to find something with which to wipe the dust off of it. In my effort to find something, anything I could use to polish the mini-toilet to a tempting gleam, I located and generously used the toilet bowl cleaner. I found a misc rag, beautified the lil’pot, and presented it to Aaron like it was a fancy new toy. He accepted his fancy new gift. Whew! He sat on it as though he were sitting on a theme park ride. But a key safety feature was missing. The hunt began again.

Meanwhile, a frying pan was heating to a scorch in wait for the bowl of eggs that sat tempering nearby. The butter that yearned to smooth out the frying pan congealed on the counter. The freshly baked cinnamon rolls cooled to a sweetly iced rock. The bleach in the toilet perfumed the whole upstairs all while the bladder bomb continued to tick, tick, tick. Checking and rechecking 3 bathroom cabinets, I discovered many lost things that I could’ve used last week, but the pee guard to the mini-john remained hidden like a nasty little leprechaun. A stroke of inspiration hit me, I found the beast and his pot of gold.

Aaron, still sitting on the mobile pot & enjoying cartoons, now had a barricade protecting my poor, abused carpet. I turned the fan on in the bathroom to consume the bleach fumes so I didn’t poison my family and ran downstairs to save my perfectly planned delectable breakfast. Breakfast complete!! Plates prepared, rolls cut into wedges, I headed toward the stairs to check on my little adventurer. The smell of food drew him away from his tv trance and he abandoned his new throne for my feast. I ran to see what frightening cleaning I may or may not need to do upstairs. (Bathroom fan still sucking up bleachy toilet cleaner fumes). I examined the pot…nothing. I carried the toilet downstairs and set it in the kitchen with an eerie feeling of déjà vu sending shivers up my spine. Breakfast continued. With my plate half assembled on a counter, we said a blessing.

Aaron said it using his sweetest most sincere words. “Heavenly Father in heaven, thank you for dis day. Gwateful for JJ and Weston. Bwess the food. Jesus Chwise. Amen”. With a feeling of pride and contentment, we began eating. I got up to prepare my plate when I heard an explosion of water spraying on my kitchen floor. I leaped out of the kitchen to see Aaron spraying the kitchen table like an elephant on a hot summer day. JJ said “Aaron spilled something”. I pulled him to the mini-trainer toilet and told him as non-chalantly as possible “We go pee pee in the potty, not the floor”. He sat on his throne again with a look of surprise and confusion. Breakfast immediately dispersed when the boys realized I was cleaning urine off the floor and table rather than juice. Thank goodness the boys had eaten a plateful of food before we managed to give it a blessing. My hope now is that the sacrifice of the kitchen floor was enough to generate a couple more synapses in Aaron’s brain in regards to toilet training. But more likely, I will tire too quickly of the constant state of emergency and we will retry this business sometime before Aaron graduates from high school. Now there is one thing left to do…scrub that bleach perfumed toilet upstairs.