Potty Training Update

I bet you couldn't stand waiting could you? You sat there every single day wondering, "How in the world is Gertrude doing with potty training? Is she a natural? Or is there pee dripping from the walls?"

The answer to both questions is "yes".

Gertrude is a natural. In that she has a sphincter muscle and a bladder. Both seem to understand that when one releases, the other empties. Gertrude has also peed on all of us.

It's not her fault, though. She's learning a new skill. And, let's face it, holding our urine is quite a decent skill to master. In fact, it is so difficult that after a few beers many men forget to use the skill and are peeing wherever they can find cover. Sometimes they don't even seek cover. Often, they like to show off their skills by going for long distance records. And, even better, sometimes they explain how much they micturate. The male of the species is an interesting animal.

But that is another topic.

After being introduced to the strangely primary colored plastic potty in our bathroom, Gertrude expressed a more than passing interest in the mechanism. She would sit on it at random times. She'd strip down and we'd find her contemplating life's tougher mysteries while lounging on the loo. It was cute in a sort of disgusting way.

Slowly, however, she started to get the idea of what the thing was for. You could see the mechanisms working. "If I take off my pants and sit here I won't have to wallow in my own mess. Yes, I can see the benefits. On the other hand, why bother? The big people always save me from my own bodily fluids. It never seemed to bother Richard Burton much."

She started telling us when she had wet her diaper and was requesting a fresh one. That's a major step. She could recognize the warm stream of relief and the unpleasant feeling of the quick chill. She then started going for many hours without wetting her diaper, followed by many false alarm trips to the potty. When she seemed to start understanding the process, we switched her into the next step of potty training.

The pull ups.

Pull ups are diapers, but fastened in such a way that the child has control over application and removal of the diaper.

Initially, this was a problem. We had unscheduled naked time in our house. One moment our daughter would be a cute toddler in her trademarked and licensed clothes. The next moment she'd be a free-wheeling hippie, dancing on the table and celebrating her freedom from the confines of the paper servitude.

Not ones to be undaunted, we started training her when it was okay to remove her clothing. She quickly grasped the idea and was on her way to urinating like a civilized human being.

The key element being the entire family cheering her efforts. It's a strange ritual. You all lord over a half naked child who is struggling to control her urethra, looking expectantly as if a monkey is going to materialize. She stares back at you with a look of fear and curiosity. "Will they always watch me do this? I'm not sure I like that idea."

Suddenly her face contorts into that strange mix of pleasure and relief you feel after downing a six pack of cheap beer and finally finding the port-a-potty. A great surge of joy fills the house as we cheer her success. We cheer as we flush the toilet. We cheer as we clean up the baby potty. She smiles, looking as if she had just been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Urination Studies.

But there is a downside to potty training. The soul-crushing disappointment of accidents. This disappointment is heightened by the fact that her little girlie pull-ups have flowers on the front that disappear when they come in contact with urine. Usually she is able to tell us that the flowers are about to disappear and we rush to the potty. But sometimes . . .

One day we were playing Play-Dough. Just the two of us. She was rolling her snakes and baking her pizzas on the coffee table. Suddenly she stops, gets a strange look on her face as her bladder empties. Then, sadness.

"Oh no," she cries, "I made the flowers disappear." And she starts to sob.

"It's okay honey," I assure her.

"The flowers are all gone!"

"It's okay," I soothe, "we'll get you new flowers. It was just an accident. Everyone has an accident every once in a while."

She looks like she feels better. I'm doing my job. I am the king of healing wounds!

"Daddy have ackydents?"

"Sure honey. A fifth of Jack and a little Faulkner can do that to a guy."

"I like Faulkner?"

"Let's hope not sweetie. I'd prefer you not be a drunken, misogynistic ass."

"Okay daddy. I be Flannery O'Conner?"

"At least a Dorothy Parker, I'd think."

We laughed, changed her soiled drawers and shared a moment over some Kettle Corn and an episode of Clifford the Big Red Dog.

Life's good. Even if it?s not always dry.

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