Please Pardon Our Appearance While We Potty Train

Last night Mike, Myra, and the kids came over for dinner and I gave them a general warning about the current state of our bathrooms. It seemed easier for me to set expectations than to run around and check on them every so often like some OCD McDonald’s washroom janitor. While Kate masters the art of diaper-free life, you never really know what you could encounter behind the bathroom door.

Some scenarios include: Half the roll of toilet paper unraveled and strewn about the room like some poorly-executed small-scale Christo installation, or wadded into a ball in an equally fraught-with-failure attempt to put it back. Then there are the wipes–those flushable ones for kids that I refused to buy the Princess or froggy version of in hopes they wouldn’t be seen as a toy. Joke’s on me since the plain white container apparently holds some less-is-more allure for Kate. At any given time, anywhere from one to 30 of those wipes could be tossed about the room. Once they were even spread across the wall tiles like some sort of moist wallpaper treatment. (And to think she’s never watched so much as a minute of HGTV!)

Oh and if stickers are your thing, you may be lucky to find the toilet seat decked out in a fresco of the one-for-pee two-for-poop stickers reserved for the special potty chart. (One of these days I’ll actually move those out of reach.) You may think it sounds charming to find your toilet bejeweled this way, but when you’re standing in line at a store and feel a small something clinging to your butt cheek, only to discover later it’s a sparkly unicorn sticker, you may change your mind. As a stay-at-home mother I’ve found such experiences slowly chip away at my dignity, even if they are kinda funny sometimes.

The other thing that’s disconcerting is unwittingly sitting on the padded training potty seat when you lower yourself down half-asleep in the middle of the night.

You may be thinking that my staying with the girl when she “goes potty” would prevent any or all of these scenarios from taking place. The thing is, 80% of the time I am with her. It’s just those infrequent (but blessed) times she wanders in on her own, or that I need to do something mid-way through a seeminlgy endless poop sesh, that I return to see Kate’s bathroom decor handiwork. Bodily functions aside, when it comes to leaving her personal mark on the bathroom, the girl is fast.

I was going to mention that when I enter to see a maelstrom of wipes and toilet paper it’s all blessedly un-used. But I won‘t mention that, seeing as I’m a huge parental believer in The Power of Jinx. The moment I say anything, luck’s tide will no doubt turn on me.

It’s like this weekend at Ella K’s birthday party. I foolishly gloated to a friend that Kate was at long last potty-trained. Not even an hour later–at which point of course the backyard party had moved indoors–Kate announced at top vox “I’m peeing!” and I (along with everyone else at the party) looked over to see her in fact doing so all over our host’s lovely living room carpet. Last time I brag.

The other manifestation of the potty training thing that spares our bathrooms but is still disquieting is the pantie obsession. Mark and I are getting a taste of how the parents of those boob-flashing spring break co-eds must feel. When Kate’s feeling shy she balls up the hem of her dress, pulls it up revealing her little bod, and sticks it in her mouth to gnaw on. The alternative to that shy mode is the “Wanna see my princess panties?” mode. I can’t count the number of times people like our mail man have had Kate reveal her panties to them. It’s troubling.

Well, no more troubling than my having to continue to change diapers, I guess.