Potty Training Number Three

I feel like I stepped into a nudist colony today. There have been signs for a while that Elijah was ready to start potty training—I tend to be of the “wait until they’re ready” camp as the parents I observe pushing their kids into it seem to go through a whole lot more trouble, not that I’m saying there’s necessarily a right or wrong way to do it—so by ready, I mean ready. Always poops the same time of day. Informs me reliably of poops and dislikes the feeling of poop against his bottom (resulting in strange contortions during diaper changes). Has read all the potty books we have, observed older siblings going through the routine, and been subtly brainwashed for weeks (“look how cool going potty is! Don’t you think you’d like to learn sometime?”). Finally, we got him undies, which convinced him to start trying.

We go through the same routine for all of them: get them naked and constrained to the less-carpeted ground floor with a small potty in a central location. Pump them full of fluids. Sit them on the potty every hour or so to get them used to trying; ask them every ten minutes in between if they need to go. Typically there’s a lot of sitting with no results, then an accident or two, at the start, then maybe an accident mixed with actually getting some pee in the potty, then eventually getting it all in the potty, with less and less prompting. Then typically two to three days of this goes on before they poop. Then you transition into undies, learning to take them on and off, maybe transition to the big potty with an adaptor seat.

It was actually more fun potty training with the older two around. They all got naked together, and ran around like banshees shouting, “he did it!” whenever Elijah did (which embarrassingly was often when I wasn’t even around; Eric was the one who coached him through the first time), then they all got small treats together. And Elijah is just so cute naked. Something about the combination of his large frontal prominence and very child-like head, his skinny rib cage, his protuberant stomach which proceeds him as he runs around—it’s all just almost too much. If he weren’t already ours, I would really want to adopt him.

Later on today there was a huge thunderstorm that lasted for hours. The kids got frightened (“robbers!” Elijah exclaimed whenever the thunder sounded), and wanted to stay plastered on top of me the entire time, huddled under blankets. This on top of Esme being in a clingy stage had me feeling just physically spent, tired of heads butting my chest, elbows digging into my belly, little butts trying to fit one onto each thigh, little arms wrapping around my neck from behind. I felt like they were little leeches I had to peel off for bedtime.

Well, I think this must be what it’s like to be in the thicket of the little-kid years. Coaching someone through something we take for granted (it’s odd to think about having to learn to void selectively into a cavernous space after being swaddled every day of your life). Dabbling in human waste. Being practically suffocated with physicality. One day, I dunno—these tall adolescent youths will be asking me for the car keys or something while they sling their backpacks on over one shoulder looking all cool—and I’ll miss these days when they ran around in gleeful nakedness and wanted to enfold themselves into me. Elijah did pretty well today: a few more days of being quarantined with naked kids, coming right up…