Sometimes They’re Born This Way 1
A has decided–yes, decided–that he is ready to use the toilet.
My two-year-old. My newly two-year-old. Ready for the potty. And he told me so.
Now, I know that some of you might be all like, “Yeah, right. He toddled over to you one day and said, ‘Hey, wassup, Mom? I think it’s time we do some of that potty stuff: you know, the toilet sitting, the toilet-flushing obsession, the scaring-the-crap-out-of-you when I pee up and over the toilet and onto your lap because boys don’t always have the best aim even when they’re sitting on the potty sorta stuff. Ya hear me?’”
And I’d have to respond, “Well, no, it wasn’t entirely like that. But yeah, it was sorta like that!”
One evening last week (I don’t know which, but we can all agree to call it the “DAY OF AWESOME”), Tim and I heard A shouting for us from his bedroom. I, who can pretty accurately decipher between toddler-shouting that signals an emergency and toddler-shouting that doesn’t, made a leisurely journey up the stairs to see what all the ruckus was about.
And at first, I was a bit frightened by what I saw: a pants-less and diaper-less child standing at the edge of his crib with a giant grin on his face.
(For those of you who don’t know, this image generally signals mayhem, chaos, and late-night laundry-ing.)
As I scanned the room to see where the errant urine-puddle and/or turd was waiting for me, A chimed in with a truly glorious refrain:
“Sit on potty, Mommy! I sit on potty!”
Initially my eyes did one of those cartooney “boy-yoy-yoing” things. Totally bulging out of their sockets. I mean, sure, we had introduced A to the potty before. But we weren’t exactly “training” him to use it yet.
As my eyeballs finished their last “yoing” (and as I realized that there were no runaway poos rolling across the floor), I sputtered out, “Um…alright! Let’s go to the potty!”
Wouldn’t you know, that clever little two-year-old peed right into the potty. Didn’t even get a drop on me, himself, or the floor during the journey between his bedroom and the bathroom.
And oh, the celebrations that ensued. The rejoicing. The hallelujahs. The late-night calls to grandparents. The repeated throwing of hands to the heavens to thank Jesus, the angels, the gods, and even the dearly departed Rue McLanahan for sprinkling so much awesome onto our lives.
And you know what’s even better? You know what makes me marvel even harder at this marvelous-ness? A has continued his self-led toilet-training every night since. He’ll even initiate potty-sitting a couple times during the day!
We might be a diaper-less family by the end of the summer!
In fact, we might even be dangerously close to that point where, just as one eventually forgets the pain of childbirth, we’ll forget the pain of teething and toilet-training and not-sleeping-through-the-night so much that we’ll start thinking about having another child. And about a year later, I’ll be all like, “WHERE WAS THAT NOTE-TO-SELF ABOUT HOW MUCH TEETHING SUCKS FOR BABIES AND THEIR PARENTS?! YOU’D THINK I’D AT LEAST REMEMBER THIS BY THE THIRD TIME AROUND!”
I digress.
(Oh wait: allow me to digress even further. If you’re jealous–if you’re thinking to yourself, “Well isn’t that special, you mindless gloater. Not all toilet-training is this easy, you know”–just know that I know. Oh yes, I know. Tim and I have joked that A’s ease with the toilet is simply God’s/nature’s/the universe’s way of taking pity on us for everything we’ve gone through with our other child when it comes to the potty. Trust me. We know how hard it can be. Oh yes. Oh yes we do.)
But back to A’s glory.
I couldn’t be prouder of my little boy. I am still shocked, amazed that he is so in tune with his body, so curious about how it works, so adapting to the roads ahead of him.
And I couldn’t be more thrilled to hear these words, and to see their accompanying mile-wide-smile, after each and every time that A sits on the potty:
“I did it, Mommy! I did it!”
Self-initiated potty-training is one thing.
But watching your child be so proud of himself–well, that’s quite another.
