Pavlov's Boy

Adorable, isn't he? Don't you just want to squeeze those sweet chubby cheeks? Pick him up and cover his face in kisses so you can hear the angelic peals of laughter emanate from that baby face?

Well, don't let the face fool you. Underneath that lovable countenance lies a ruthless stubborn streak and the iron will of a KGB general circa 1985. I know you're thinking , "Huh? Oh, c'mon, Angela! You're exaggerating! That sweet little angel could melt the cold, dead heart of Dick Cheney even. Ruthless? Please!" Well, you don't live with him. You don't know. I do.

My adorable son has been going pee pee in his potty pretty well this week. Earning and eating so many M&M's, I'm surprised his pants still fit. But pooping in the potty? Not so much. He's got it all figured out, see. Killian's bowel movements are about as regular and predictable as a Lindsay Lohan coke binge. Every day, near noonish, he's got to go. But he refuses to go in the potty. This plays out one of three ways. The first is that he hides and poops in his big boy pants, and when we discover that this has occurred, he then stares at us with woeful brown eyes that say "please don't be mad." We react the same way every time he does it: we gently walk him to the bathroom, speaking softly and telling him that we all have accidents but he really needs to tell us when he's got to go. We clean him up, while he whimpers remorsefully, which tears at the heart like nothing else. Sometimes we are able to salvage the underpants, sometimes not. And as soon as we're finished, his mood brightens instantly. An outsider would never suspect that mere seconds earlier, he was crying as if the world were ending or Sesame Street was canceled. No, the giggles that bubble up as he runs out of the bathroom and back to playing would never suggest anything at all had happened. It's very suspicious.

If he doesn't poop his big boy pants, it's because he still has pull-ups on. The same basic scene is played out, with us reminding him that he needs to alert us before going, but minus the crying because hey, pull-ups are like diapers and he's pooped in diapers his whole life, so why should he feel bad? The third option is that the moment of poop occurs while we're letting him run around sans pants of any sort; I read somewhere that if you let your toddler go without pants that they'll be more aware of their need to go and act accordingly. This has worked well with urination. But with pooping, he either poops on the floor, after which a scene similar to the one where he poops in his big boy pants occurs, or he grabs a pair of pull-ups and insists we put them on him and then soils them within 5 short minutes, or he holds out as long as possible and just refuses to go.

Yesterday came and went with no poop. There were stray escapes of gassiness, but that was it. So we figured at bedtime that he must be holding it in. And the problem was that we only had one pull-up left, and no way of getting more until today when the unemployment money arrives. If we put the last pull-up on him and he pooped in it, then he would have to wear big boy pants to bed, and he hasn't mastered overnight dryness yet. That meant he would invariably wet the bed in the middle of the night, waking everyone up and creating a large mess to clean up. Being the optimists that we are, we figured we could once and for all trick him into using the toilet. We're adults, we can outlast a 2 year old, right?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

We went through the usual bedtime rituals of picking up toys, teeth brushing, bathing, etc. Interspersed in the activity were several trips to the toilet to urinate. No poo. After a particularly noxious passage of gas, we put him on the toilet thinking this was it. We did everything we could to entertain him and thus keep him there. We read him books. We watched Sprout. We sang songs. He got back up leaving only urine. It was 10:30 P.M., his usual bedtime (we're night owls and not working, whaddya want? Early birds we are not). We calmly played with puzzles until another gas bubble. Rushing to the toilet, we again did our best to keep him there. I read Dr. Seuss while Danny hugged him. He got up leaving nothing. It was 11:30 P.M. now. We decided to roughhouse, thinking the activity would force his sphincter to let go, at which point we would place him on the nearby toilet. This only resulted in my glasses almost being broken along with Danny's nose (Killian is much stronger than he looks). Now it was 12:30. I was starting to tire. Killian was not. I thought, "I can do this...I have the blood of Celtic warrior queens running through my veins, along with strong Native chieftains and German tenacity. I got this."

At 1 A.M. it occurred to me that Killian gets half of his genetic material from me and that he, too, is full of the blood of Irish warrior queens, etc. He also has the whole French charm thing working for him. Then I knew I was beat. But rather than admit defeat, we decided to place Killian on the big potty with his stepstool supporting his feet while Danny held him there. Maybe the change in position would help him along? He looked rather unsure, but he didn't protest. He made a couple of his "I'm pooping" noises, and we thought we had won. He started to get off the toilet so we hastily grabbed another Dr. Seuss and I started reading. All to no avail. Nada. And it was 1:45 A.M. It had been over three hours, 12 books, 2 bouts of roughhousing, 3 Sprout productions, and countless opportunities. We had lost the battle. We put him in his pull-ups and then to bed. He never did poo.

I'm not exactly sure what this all means. I thought I was learning patience when we had to wait almost two years and file endless stacks of paper with thousands of dollars just so Danny and I could get married. I thought all my wacky health problems were teaching me to let go, that I couldn't be in control all the time. I've always encouraged my kids to express themselves, so I don't think that's it. All I know is that my entire life is now centered around the toilet...day after day of laundering big boy pants, clothing, towels, crib sheets, and stuffed animals all covered in urine. Hours of asking "do you need to potty?" while rushing to the toilet and cheerfully reminding him "you'll get candy!" Sometimes we even have to bathe Killian more than once a day, and we probably have spent hundreds of dollars on bubble bath and body wash for kids. Oh, and the pull-ups and wipes? Another small fortune. Worse than that, I recently found myself telling another adult "I need to go pee pee. I'll be right back." I'm not sure I'll ever be able to regain my dignity. I will persevere though. That's what parents do. But he better learn soon because I'm sure as hell not explaining to his future wife why he needs to go to the restroom every time he sees M&M's.