Warning: This post is revolves around potty training and, as a result, is a bit graphic in nature, although I tried my best to tone it down.
FM#3 is potty trained. This is big news because I truly thought he would be the child the pediatricians say doesn’t exist. The one going off to college in a pull up. I had given up. Fortunately, my friends had not. One day, a friend was on the phone early one morning and FM#3 asked to talk to her. She asked him what he had on, meaning pajamas or dressed for the day (it was early) and when he answered “A pull-up”, she asked where his underwear was. He said, “Spiderman.” I took the phone back from him and translated. I said, “What he means is: it’s Spiderman underwear. It’s in my drawer. I just choose not to use it. But I know where it is and I know what’s on it.” I wasn’t watching FM#3 as I was talking but he had wandered off. He promptly came back into the room with a pair of his Spiderman underwear and after taking off his pull-up, promptly put his underwear on. I quickly hung up and said, “Okay, that’s it. No more pull-ups. You need to go in the potty, now. This is it, we are not going back to pull-ups.” He had a few accidents the first day but after that we had one thing down. The other thing, the yuckier thing in underwear, not so much. 😦 I asked for prayer. From lots of people. I thought it would take months. Maybe years. Then one day progress. And it was all over with. He was potty trained. We were finished. Except that it’s still a big deal to him. He’s very excited about it. He has taken bows in the evening when the whole family praises him for his success and says, “Fank you, fank you.” He calls his personal potty his “Potty train” because he’s a bit confused about our terminology. And he likes to show off. You have to come in and see the results and praise him but in the mean time, he needs his PRIVACY! So this weekend, when we were rocket launching and availing ourselves of the use of the facilities at the little podunk airport where we launch, he would quickly run into a bathroom and lock the door until he was finished and ready to show us the final product. He did this quite a few times throughout the day. Then, as we took one last potty break before heading home, he was unable to unlock the door. “It’s too heavy he would moan through the door.” I have no idea what this meant. I just kept coaching him to turn the button. He kept fidgeting with the handle and not the button. Then he would moan again, “It’s too heavy.” The window was made of glass blocks so we couldn’t get in that way. We were unable to pick the lock on the door. The manager of the airport (who lives next door to the office, where we were) wasn’t home so I went to the car to get my cell phone so I could call the fire department. I was going to call the main number rather than 911 and this is how I envisioned my conversation “Yeah, we’re at the airport and there’s no emergency but my 4 year old has locked himself in the bathroom so when you get a chance, could you bring some door removal tools over because we don’t have anything suitable.” I walked back into building to look up the number and saw my husband with another member of the rocket club and they already had 2 hinges off. Then the third came off and then the door came off and FM#3 shouted “He’s looking at me” pointing at the stranger. I said, “Thanks, I was about to call the fire department.” He said, “I used to be a fire fighter. We used to do stuff like this all the time.” At least it’s not just me and my bad parenting.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
My Life with My Kids, with an appearance every so often by my Beloved 