The Potty Wars (to be continued, I'm sure!)

July 16, 2011 (I know this is old, but you've gotta relate on some level?)

Well, it seems as if I am going to have the only toddler not potty trained upon entering kindergarten. Okay, so it’s only Junior kindergarten, and when the hell did society decide that we stay-home mothers have to give up our babies at the age of three??? –but I digress. You know how everyone always says, “well, don’t worry, at least she’ll be potty trained by the time she goes to school?”  Frankly, as that deadline looms on the horizon, and I clean up one after another of my darling's ever-so-effective little ‘protests’, I have to say that I am, in fact having serious doubts.  So much so, that I have enrolled my little darling in a nursery school J-K, just in case.  $3000.00 a year to admit that I’m a bad parent, while the rest of her more enlightened peers make plans to attend the wonderful public school just steps from our very own front door!  And no matter how many kind souls reassure me that it’s no big deal, it is a big deal to me.  This is the kind of thing that my overactive imagination tells me will scar a child for life. In fact, just about everyone from my school class can probably tell you the name of the unfortunate little boy we went to school with, who pooped his drawers on the second day of school.  On the other hand, back then - we went to school when children were supposed to go – at the age of five! But I probably don’t have to worry too much? This lovely grandmother over here tells me that surely, surely, she won’t still be pooping her pants when she goes to high school???

In our little store, I see toddler after toddler, (babies, really), do what all the jelly beans, books, and stickers in the world cannot entice mine to do. I see their mothers, smiling beatifically as they shop, secure in the knowledge that they will not be humiliated by their little darlings, who have mastered the elusive art of toilet pooping.  

I think, perhaps, that my station, as the owner of a store that is all about babies, toddlers, and little kids, imparts a false sense of “She may actually know what in the hell she’s doing, here.”  And it sounds good, on paper, but sometimes, I feel like a hypocrite, and I swear, one day, the floor will swallow me up whole from the shame of it as I counsel parents of 2 and 3 year olds on the theories behind successful potty training.

All this, while mine is crouching behind the display crib, frantically trying to ‘make’ in her pants before I can catch her – I can see her now, out of the corner of my eye, as the mother of an eight month old asks me if I have any thoughts on infant potty training. As if I know!  Sigh!  All I can tell parents, really, is which eco-friendly disposable training pant can manage a size 4 toddler through the night.  Well…I guess that’s something