Get on the Pot!! A Tale of Perseverance and Poop

The top of the refrigerator is where all the good stuff is. Ceramic pots holding keys that don't open anything. Bills that never go away. Important tax information that we pray doesn't slide off the back. Occasionally, a seasonal elf.

And potty bribes. Always display the potty bribe on top of the refrigerator, for all (kids) to see.

Earlier in the year, our world was jolted when we learned our oldest child had scoliosis, until we then learned she'd handle it way better than we would. Then a different situation involving a kid's backside took over and threatened to divide our house.

After boldly foolishly predicting (jinxing) in August I had exactly 13 diapers left to change in my lifetime, it soon became evident that those of you betting the "over" could redeem your winning, poop-stained tickets at a changing table nearest you. Somebody refused to cooperate, even though our diaper budget had officially run out after 7 consecutive years and more money than we spent on cars.

We tried to sweeten the pot for our 2-year-old to sit on the pot by buying a couple of $6 trucks and setting them--guess where-- on top of the refrigerator. Turns out we could have placed the trucks in the attic, the other dead-end destination for overly curious children, back behind the Apple IIe monitors, bowling balls, and broken humidifiers and dehumidifiers. The little guy had less interest in toy trucks than in sitting in a pile of his own mess. Sounds reasonable, amiright, 2-year-olds?

Kids present challenges at all ages. But there are few more painful times than when you're expected to predict exactly when a toddler in underpants is about to crap himself. More painful than watching them try to butter, add syrup to, and slice a waffle. More painful than when other people's kids introduce yours to pop music.

The scene of many crimes lately.

The kid doesn't know when it's time to go. You used to know. He'd grab hold of the biggest piece of furniture in the house, cross his eyes, and turn his face a magenta you haven't seen since the 64 crayons. Now, he disappears into your shoe closet and as you notice he's is missing, you have to fetch a mask and a shovel and hurry to save your favorite slippers.

"I have to POOP!" he beams. Your closet smells like chemical warfare.

One particularly bad evening saw us unwittingly involved in a game of hide and seek with a cold-blooded menace. As my wife innocently called out, "Where arrrrre you?" he answered back in a sing-songy voice, "behind the couuuuuuch!"

"What are you dooooooing?"

"Poooping my paaaaaants!"

And we both scrambled to our feet, pre-empted the game, moved the couch, located the perpetrator and frowned as he smiled, another lost opportunity to get the kid on the pot.

Our life had turned into the first 20 minutes of a kidnapping movie, except our kid was the bad guy instead of the victim. And instead of refusing to bargain with the bad guy, we offered him anything he wanted. Toy trucks? Yours. Mickey Mouse pancakes every night for two weeks? Fire up the that god-awful Griddle. And instead of slamming the phone down and/or hanging up and laughing maniacally, he'd stay on his Fisher Price and pretend to talk to Grandma, then throw it down the stairs and laugh maniacally.

Our wits usually have no end, but they were appearing in plain view as we almost went Tony Hayward on each other. We got out the potty chart in an attempt to get our lives back. Nothing worked.

One day it clicked. Just as a routine visit to the dentist miraculously coaxed our co-sleeping 4-year-old into his own bed, a routine trip to the barber shop convinced our 2-year-old to stop soiling himself. As he was waiting his turn to sit in the chair, once again our star decided he had to go to the bathroom, except he never told anyone of his intentions, and so...

"Well, you can't get your hair cut with poopy pants," his rankled mother told him as she carried the boy, quite literally kicking and undoubtedly screaming, out of the barber shop, his hair still shaggy and unruly.

Trucks be damned. Pancakes be damned. All the kid wanted was a haircut, and when he didn't get one because of a bad set of underpants, he realized he needed to change course, soon, before his bangs covered his eyes.

So he went home and immediately sat on the toilet. But this is a tale of perseverance; the happy ending does not come quickly. He had just done the deed a few minutes earlier, so he sat and sat and pushed and crossed his eyes and turned that eggplant/deviled egg/magenta we were used to, and...nothing.

Bummer.

But the precedent had been set. The potty chart was out, and after filling up his chart with 10 stickers roughly 10 days later, he had his trucks from the top of the fridge and clean underwear on his bottom. And we had our lives back.

To be sure, sometimes it's still a struggle...when he announces he has to poop, he's moved up the deadline from 5 seconds too late to 5 seconds early. So there's no "hold on, buddy...right after I send out this email/I finish this page/this play/etc." "I need to poop" means "I need to poop. Now." And there have been accidents, but mostly when he's been "helping" with the dishes and forgets what he's doing.

So the top of the fridge is back to old mail and wallets. For us it's on to a new phase of frivolous spending...tell us, oh parents whose kids are out of diapers, what will we spend our money on next?

What Did I Miss? November 6

Another day when my kids hit the sack before I get home...sigh...this is what happened...

We finally brought out the armada in the war against pooping our pants. Tired of listening to how continent our youngest can be within the walls of Day Care only to have him come home and slide away and hide under the kitchen table to load up, we bribed him with offered him a fleet of toy trucks. (Retail Price: $5.88)

The toys that will keep our house from smelling like poop. Pictured at bottom: A two-year-old pic of the Easter Bunny.

He declined for six weeks, opting instead to suddenly disappear and quietly soil himself instead of going through the rigors of pooping on the toilet. We suspected something was amiss when he started disappearing. He never disappears, he's always in our faces, making himself available at all times and leaving a trail of toys in his wake, which we find in the middle of the night with our feet.

Tonight he found the trucks and decided he wanted to play with them. This, shortly after once again smudging up the face of Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

"Ohhhhhh, no," my wife said she said, before explaining that he can't have the trucks until he poops on the potty at home ten times in a row. He seemed so agreeable to the deal that he immediately went to the can and tried to poop all ten times right then and there...nearly giving himself a childhood hernia, if there is such a thing? Or bursting a blood vessel in his anus. We'll see if the enthusiasm continues or wanes, but if trucks are on the line, then these days might be over (I hope you took the over.)

For Christmas and then his birthday last year, we got the middle one the complete set of mini-NFL football helmets. (OK, maybe they were for me, too.) Every week, we organize them in order of the week's NFL matchups, and each week, when I ask for the Seahawks, Texans, Bears, Falcons, Jaguars, Panthers, Ravens, or even Buccaneers helmets, he always hands me the Broncos, and I have to say a variation of "That's not a bird, that's a HORSE."

So now he has become obsessed with death, which always unsettles me when he speaks so frankly about it. Tonight he asked what people are like when they're dead. When my wife responded that they don't do anything, he insisted that Dad (who apparently will go first) will still eat with us, go to work, and, most importantly, move the football helmets. Somebody PLEASE move the football helmets for him when I'm gone.

It's the Diaper Countdown

How many diapers do I have left?

The other night driving home my mind wandered out to the edges, and I asked myself that question. Given our careful planning of each pregnancy to ensure a constant monthly diaper expense seven years and counting, but with a full-fledged toddler intimating a need for advanced potty-training, ("I poot on the FLOOR!")  misty eyes started looking ahead to the cleanest, most humane of childhood milestones...potty training the last child.

I think I have thirteen diapers left to change in my lifetime.

The calculation is simple but not frivolous. We are aiming to train our youngest to go on the can by mid-August, by forcing him to wear underpants that cause all sorts of uncomfortable leakage issues if he goes anywhere but the potty. That's seven weeks from now. At an average of 1.5 diapers per week, plus allowing for 2-3 emergency diapers, and given my expectation of becoming that uncle/friend/"uncle"/grandfather who will hold a baby quite literally all day until the moment they fill their pants, then, scurrying, hold the baby out with arms extended as if holding a radioactive, exploding bag of crap, (which it is) I will present the baby to his parents:  "I think this is yours."

(The difference between uncle and "uncle" should be fairly intuitive. An uncle is family, your parent's brother or brother-in-law. An "uncle", then, is someone of no relation but who is so close to your parents that he deserves an honorary title, especially when he's letting you eat ice cream for breakfast and use his couch cushions as wrestling props...essentially the older brother you never had... way, WAY older, which is why he was never your older brother.)

HOLD ON. Someone in the crowd wonders, where does this guy get off changing 1.5 diapers per week? Either his kid has a life-threatening constipation issue or someone's got a case of the lazies. Deadbeat dad alert! This guy can't be bothered to change his kid's diaper but one-n-a-half times a week...

It comes down to choices. Not that I choose to let my child sit in his own filth, though he still seems cool with that. But, as she does with her kindergarten kids daily, my wife "empowers" me by allowing me to make my own decisions. "I'll change that diaper if you clean the kitchen floor..." "I'll change the kid's diaper if you pick up the basement..." "Would you rather change his diaper or stay on hold with the cable company?"

I still fall for it every time. Every single time. The "other" alternative, seemingly benign, has a hidden undercurrent of "fail" to it that makes a simple rotting diaper the least of the family's concerns. That kitchen floor? We had rice tonight. Gotta pick every one up, including the 3,000 that get stuck in the broom. The basement? Nobody told me they re-enacted the Boston Juice Box Party all over the couch. The cable company? Shoulda seen that one coming.

And once you make your choice, you're stuck with it. If you try to opt out, offer to stick your whole head inside the offending diaper for the right to change your mind, it is over. "You made your choice." The "and now you'll live with the consequences" is just sort of understood. There is little more deflating than realizing your misery is the result of your own choices. Kindergarten class of 2014-15, beware.

But besides all of that, there may appear to be a monetary benefit to this. The penny-pinching, corporate type in me wants badly to estimate how much money we have spent on diapers over the years, then compare that number to the price of a pretentious, douchey, over-priced car. There won't be any real savings anyway, because the money not spent on diapers will surely be spent on something else kid-related, like Frozen Dance Camp.

Frozen Dance Camp sounds like cheap fish sticks but is actually a week-long summer event based off of an obscure Disney movie that you're probably only vaguely familiar with. Frozen Dance Camp came to us by accident in a series of events so involved that the average length of the "Long Story Short" version is still three minutes and 26 seconds. By the end of this week, the participants, which include my daughter, will have created a Tour de Force of Frozen je ne sais quoi that, given their immersion with the subject matter, could match any of my daughter's former dance studio's annual output. Just not sure that it will be in French.

But that's for another time. Our diaper days are numbered and that makes my wife sad, because it's soon another milestone behind us. Maybe one last messy diaper for the baby book. But it makes me sad, too, because at least I knew when my kids were crapping in their pants instead of the toilet, we could be reasonably assured someone was then wiping their butts.