Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Our Summer is Literally in the Toilet

I've heard that in Germany, people potty train their one year olds. Calm down, I used to think. You're making the rest of us look bad.

But now I'm beginning to see the wisdom in their ways.

Because otherwise it's Potty Training, meet the Terrible Twos. You all should get along great. You're both the worst thing in the world.

Sigh.

We're on day seven of potty training. Or shall I say potty nothing.

Basically, J.J. and I sit in the bathroom and read board books. You'd think we were at the library. I wish.

With Johnny having swimmer's ear and J.J. "trying" to go potty every hour and temperatures in the triple digits, we're practically shut-ins. Any day now, a church group is going to drop by to sing Christmas carols and rake our yard and dedicate three hail marys and an our father to us.

Just to get my toddler in the bathroom is a huge ordeal. He throws fits. I throw fits.

All the books we read end with the kid going potty. Three cheers! So and so's a big boy! Rah rah rah! Sis boom bah!

There is no happy ending to our story. Instead, ours would go: Sadly, the little boy never got potty trained. He couldn't go to preschool and his mom couldn't go back to work and they all starved and I hope you're happy. The end.

Speaking of books, mine keeps getting rejected. When you're a writer and you get an envelope addressed to you in your own handwriting, it's never good news. Good news comes in phone calls and e-mails.

On a happy note, I got assigned three more work-for-hire books. Now, my dream is for the topics at our church trivia night to be: Wisconsin. Peninsulas. The Alkaline Earth Metals. Because that's what my assignments are.

I also sent off the first three chapters of my romance novel to an editor. Now I wait and see if she wants to read the whole thing.

Hmm...maybe my next assignment could be...How to potty train your three year old while becoming a billionaire best selling novelist. Children would probably find that topic a bit self-serving, however. Not to mention unrealistic.

The old saying was, "Nobody goes to kindergarten un-potty trained." It was to remind moms there wasn't a big rush, back in the days when kids didn't go to preschool.

Now we have early childhood education, and in Kansas City, it's free.

So the new saying among preschool teachers is "Lots of preschool parents claim their kids are potty trained. What a frickin' joke."

Well, we still have a little time.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Being able to laugh at yourself and your situations is something you're very good at, so I don't worry about you not being able to handle anything!! JJ may just go sit on the potty himself one of these days when he's realy. Or he could be like that lady on the news and live on his potty until he figures out what he's there for. Good luck! Mom

11:18 AM  
Blogger B J C said...

This is so true! Not to scare you, but it took literally years to potty train our oldest, and the youngest is still in process. You can try reading, punishing, bribing, etc., but it simply won't happen until the kid decides it's time to happen.

And, by the way, the 'frickin' joke' is absolutely correct! :)

Best of luck to you!

10:14 PM  
Blogger Kathleen Stander said...

I potty trained my son by taking him out in the back yard and asking him to pee on trees. This sounds sort of weird, but it worked.
Also, if it was raining outside, I dropped Cheerios into the toilet and asked him to "sink those ships."
He's now 20 years old and hasn't had an accident in about 17 years.
***
Which piece got turned down? I know what you mean by getting mail with your own handwriting on it. Bad news, like getting thin mail from the bank.

11:55 AM  

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