Toilet Training, aka How the Universe Puts Even the Cockiest Parent in His/Her Place

Toilet training. A rite of passage as old as time itself, spanning space, culture, and gender...a rite that ultimately helps both child and parents embrace his/her newfound independence...a rite that anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of psychology knows can make or break a child's mental health FOR A LIFETIME. No pressure, right?

Crack open an introductory psychology book, read a parenting manual, or watch an episode or two of Jerry Springer, and the importance of proper toilet training becomes quite clear. Luckily for me and my daughter, Shelby, I was attending school full time during her initial toilet training and had planned ahead so that I would be taking Psychology of Personality and Abnormal Psychology to coincide with this timeless rite of passage. I took the process very seriously, for fear of being too lenient or too rigid. Too lenient, and my daughter would be doomed to a life of inconsiderate and lazy behavior that would only qualify her for employment as a smacked-out prostitute. Too rigid, and she might be too successful and become an alcoholic with bizarre sexual fetishes involving leather. Like Goldilocks with psychological poo poo instead of porridge, it had to be juuuuust right.

The process was surprisingly easy. It took only a couple of days and a sticker chart to ensure proper urination; evacuation was more difficult. It took about two weeks to reassure Shelby that it was a good thing that her poops disappeared out of sight, never to return. Nevertheless, she was fairly easy to train and even though there were frequent episodes of nighttime enuresis, I was pleased with her performance as well as mine. I suspected the nighttime enuresis was hereditary, as I too had been a bed wetter regardless of how little I drank after 6 PM. A medical exam confirmed my suspicions and her bladder finally caught up with her maturity. Overall, toilet training was not particularly stressful and I thought it successful.

By the time Killian came along, I had grown more relaxed as both a parent and a person. For example, pretend you've informed me that my child has just stuck their hands into a poopy diaper, then into their mouth. When Shelby was little, that would've elicited an immediate bath in whatever cleaning substance was the closest to bleach in formulation, but legal to apply to human skin, along with approximately 50 teeth brushings, followed by a trip to the emergency room to ensure that no tropical disease had been contracted, and later on, a bedtime story featuring little poo monsters that tie your intestines into knots for fun and that is why we never, under any circumstances, ingest poop. Now if you were to tell me my kid ate poop? Meh, whatever...I'd give him some water to drink, wash his hands, and change the poopy pull-ups. I'd tell him "dude, don't eat your poop, that's gross", before helping him to brush his teeth. And that would be that.

When Killian started exhibiting some of the signs for toilet training readiness, I was overjoyed. I had recently figured out that between toilet paper, cat litter, Pull-Ups and diapers, our household was spending close to $100 a month just on waste. And that made me feel...well, wasteful.

The first few days of training Killian, I let him just sit on his potty. You know, get a feel for it and all. He responded by sitting there for all of 20 seconds before disappearing out of the room, only to return with a handful of Hot Wheels that he would promptly stack into neat combinations in his toilet. After several days of redirection, he stopped placing items into the toilet and began to sit there for progressively longer periods of time. After a couple of weeks, he surprised us all by urinating into the toilet! I think he was as surprised as we were for when the urination started, he opened his legs and watched incredulously as liquid came out his penis, which he inspected thoroughly, like he suspected it was broken.

He made even more progress in the following weeks: he began depositing feces into the toilet along with urine, and he needed less prompting to use the toilet. I thought we were well on the way to independent toileting. Then The Stomach Flu happened. We all got sick with it, which meant no one did laundry for about four days. No big deal, we had pull-ups as a back-up. We noticed he was using the toilet less frequently while wearing the pull-ups, then on the fifth day, when we attempted to put newly laundered big boy pants on Killian, he let out a screech so horrific I thought the neighbors would call the police to report a domestic disturbance.

Our domecile was disturbed all right...three months of hard work disappeared after only four days of illness! All of it!!! Now we couldn't even put regular undies on him without severe decompensation. He showed absolutely no interest in his potty books or DVD's. What about the fabulous sticker chart, you ask? He couldn't give a shit. Literally. No, he had decided that life was more comfortable when other people wiped his ass for him. 'Stop playing and run into another room in time to use the toilet? But why? It's so much easier for Mom and Dad to clean me up'. The ramifications were horrifying: my son was going to be a lazy, inconsiderate man who expected women to clean up after him. And it was all my fault. I had failed!

My husband, ever the philosopher, took it in stride. "Maybe he's just not ready. He'll let us know when he's ready." My response to that was, "Easy for you to say. No one is going to blame you when he goes off to college in diapers. It will be my fault, because I'm the mom. It's ALWAYS our fault. We're too cold AND too affectionate. Too overbearing yet disinterested. Whether he picks his nose or grows up to strangle hookers, it will be my fault, not yours!"

I talked about it with a friend, Laura, whose son is three months younger than ours. Her son, Grant, was toilet training rapidly; I had thought he would be the opposite. Killian is supremely laid back, will eat just about anything, or go to just about anyone. Grant, on the other hand, is the definition of picky. He only eats boiled eggs and Cheerios, and excepting his mother and me, does not enjoy the company of women. I just knew he would be difficult to toilet train, and Killian would be easy. Except that wasn't happening. Was I competing with Laura through our kids? She suggested using M&M's as a reward for sitting on the toilet. I resisted, saying that I didn't like to use food as a reward or punishment as that sometimes plants the seeds for future eating disorders.

After the realization that it was my issues interfering in the toilet training, I decided that leniency was preferable to rigidity and laid off for a couple of months. After all, his mental health and my physical health depended on it as autoimmune disorders are made much worse by stress. Eventually, we got out the big boy pants and presented them as an option to the pull-ups, and Killian eventually chose them. Eventually, he showed interest in his potty again as something other than a step-stool. Eventually, he peed in the potty. And yes, I ended up breaking my own rule about using food as a bribe. Guess what? The M&M's work beautifully! He gets one for sitting on the potty, two if he pees in the potty, and three if he poops in the potty. He's still skittish about defecation, but we're working on it. I am learning a great lesson in patience and flexibility, if anything. Only one thing: I noticed today that he is parsing out the pee in order to maximize M&M receipt. He'll sit on the toilet, getting one M&M just for sitting there. Then he'll urinate, but only a tiny amount that in no way matches prior consumption of liquid. I'll give him another M&M since I promised that was the deal. He'll get up, wipe himself, then run off for a few minutes, at which point we begin again. What should've been two trips to the potty resulting in four M&M's ended up being nine trips resulting in eighteen M&M's! I'm scared that he has a future in Wall Street...help???