Splashdown!

[PARENTAL WARNING: This post is full of crap. Not safe for work, or people who haven’t personally raised children.]

After four-plus under-performing years, I’d had it with my mostly hands-off approach to The Boy’s potty-training. I kept relying on all manner of professionals, and The Missus, to solve the problem for me, but once again, at another pivotal juncture in The Boy’s life, I decided I had to put my foot down. It was time for Potty-Training Boot Camp.

He was at the point where he knew perfectly well what we wanted, but was so comfortable with downloading his dumpage directly into his pull-ups that he just wasn’t taking the next step to making in the toilet.

So I kept him home Tuesday to work on the problem. A “neither one of us is leaving this house till we’re both crapping in the toilet instead of our drawers” mindset prevailed. Even though even on a good Tuesday it’s my roughest day of the work week, theoretically, this is exactly the type of opportunity working from home affords me.

And this was not a good work-day Tuesday. [tedious job-related complaints omitted here]

It would have been a huge stress-out/self-pity day except that I had The Boy home too, and he kept me too distracted with both the ridiculous and the sublime to submit to wallowing in feeling sorry for myself.

The Missus came back from her parents with a well-intentioned plan of her Dad’s to gain The Boy’s cooperation by earning poker chips for every poop he made. Turns out, The Boy literally didn’t give a crap about the poker chips (to a 4-year-old it’s just a piece of plastic that doesn’t light up or make noises or do anything), but the Jeep that Transformers® into Captain America that I picked up from Toys R Us, that was a hell of a motivator.

So I coupled my cooler bribe with another idea of her dad’s that I really liked – buy lots of underpants and let him get tired of crapping in them. He even gave us cash with which to do it. So I went to Target Monday night and picked up a score of Pixar character-festooned underpants his size. (Thanks, Pops!)

After a whole morning of fruitless but good faith efforts to produce excreta on the potty, The Boy proceeded to crank out about a quart of the A-quality sludge in his brand-new underpants around noon – in the kitchen – at the exact moment two of the colleagues I’d been desperately waiting to hear back from all morning called me simultaneously. I literally had my hands full of shit, a son who was caked in poopy goo all down his legs and crying to be cleaned and the goddamned dog standing outside the bathroom, waiting for his chance to eat my son’s poopy undrpants.

It was INsane.

But he and I talked about it all day. I whipped out that Captain America toy and let him hold it while he sat on the potty, picking at the packaging, talking about it, about the colors, about heroes, about America… Every time he sat down on the potty that day, he played with the Cap transformer box. I woulda taken a picture but I have to start thinking about his dignity sometime. Anyhow, I don’t think it’s an image I’ll soon forget, even without a photo.

Eventually around 3:30 The Boy wore out and went down for a nap.

Got him up about 5 and we continued to work on The Task. I handed him off briefly to his mother when she got home but placed myself back on the front line the next time he wanted to try again. He was asking me now if he could try again, he wanted that Captain America Transformer so bad. So I sat in the bathroom with him again and talked him through it. Unsuccessfully.

Eventually, at around his bedtime, we went in and tried again and lo and behold, he expelled a miniscule but undeniable amount of defecation into the toilet. The ratio of celebration to quantity of poo was way out of proportion, but we’d all earned a good celebration.

Since it wasn’t a massive dump, he didn’t get the big toy, but he did get a very cool smaller Captain America toy (inset). And since we’d discussed the parameters of the agreement all day, he was very happy to have the little toy. It was hard getting him to get off the toilet, he was so determined to make a big deposit and win the top prize.

Kept him home again the next day to significantly lesser success. He no longer evinced any interest in the big Transformer toy. All day long he resisted any bathroom entreaties and ended the day sans BM.

The next day The Missus stayed home too and we tag-teamed all day to no success. Now two consecutive days without dropping a deuce. There was no way he was gonna last three but he had to go to day care on Friday.

We went to bed Thursday night, The Missus and me, very discouraged. I was worried that the brusque, brutish day care lady was going to be shepherding my son through his next traumatic massive undies-unload.

Friday early afternoon, I get a call from the A-List day care lady (whew!) with the happy news that The Boy had successfully hit the head in time with his smelly load. I grabbed an unopened Batman action figure, ran out of the house and raced through the slushy rain to the day care facility. We had a big celebration and he told me all about it (“It was like a volcano of poo!”).

The big question was, would he perform as well ever again, or was this just a wild, once-in-a-lifetime fluke? Well, I’m happy to report that, after more than four years, potty-training confidence is finally high. He hit the center ring again today, with no mess to clean up and finally earned his kick-ass Captain America Transformer.

The Boy didn’t become a man today, but I think he might have advanced at least as far as Little Man. Congratulations, son. Mommy and Daddy couldn’t be prouder of you. Or more relieved.

Addendum: And now I’m off to Target, to pick up another giant bribe for tomorrow. Thank God weekends only come twice a week or we’d never be able to afford to housetrain him!