The Negotiator

Potty Training Boot Camp Status Report: We have met the enemy and we are his.

Subject is intractable and indefatigable and slowly wearing down our resolve.

The “Number One” part of the reindoctrination process is going swimmingly, but only at home. He’s happy to come running up to report to either of us that he has to pee, and endure the mild indignities that follow as he is highly-praised and amply rewarded for such efforts afterwards.

At daycare, however, he either holds it all in till naptime (when he is changed into a diaper) or has a series of “accidents” till the staff puts him back in his diaper and he can pee as god intended, wherever and whenever he damn well pleases.

The “Number Two” part is not proceeding even that guardedly encouragingly. There’s still only two places he sees fit to drop a deuce, and neither one of them is in his training potty. From his howls of protest, you’d think he was undergoing an interrogation in a black-ops CIA dungeon in Yemen, or at least a good old-fashioned Yale hazing prank gone horribly wrong.

One example: Today, after his nap, he was still in his diaper and stinking up my office something fierce while we watched “Superman” per his request. He was skulking around in slow motion circles, keeping an eye on me, wary that I might be considering whisking him off to the training potty, when all I wanted to do was open the office door he had just closed – gag!

I go, “Are you farting or making poo?”

“I’m just farting,” he lies to me.

“Okay, well then open the door. Your farts smell awful!”

“No, I’m just farting,” he repeated, emphasizing the untrue part for my dull-witted benefit.

I got up to go open the door. “Look, we gotta get some air in here…”

“Nooo!” he cried. As a parent, I ignored his plea and flung the door wide.

“Look,” I said, “I need some fresh air…”

“Nooo!” He ran out of the office and pulled the door shut behind him. When it was almost all the way shut, he pushed it back open a crack and looked up at me, dead serious. He furrowed his little brow and said, “You stay here and watch “Superman” and I’m going to go make poo in the front room, okay?”

His articulation of this New Plan was positively military in its brevity and efficiency of language. And as long as it meant he was taking his accompanying stench to another part of the house, he’d get no argument from me. Not that it would have mattered anyhow.

Three-year-olds are born negotiators.