The Half a Million Dollar Potty Training Solution

Wednesday, March 10, 2010
I've successfully potty-trained one child and we all know what that means. I am now a potty-training expert. Bestow your wealth of excremental knowledge upon us oh maven of all things urine and feces, you all scream. And I, of course, will oblige you. So here you have it. The all-inclusive, fail-proof and easy-to-follow guide on how to potty-train your any my child using the $500,000 Potty-Training Solution.

- Spend $1.89 on The Wonder Pets "fruit" snacks. Try not to cringe when you watch him eat red dye #5 saturated high frustose corn syrup nuggets shaped like Tuck's head. Because no amount of jelly beans will overcome the fear associated with dropping a load into the unknown aqua abyss that is the toilet.

- Spend $5.95 on a potty-training book and only read the first few pages. Try not to roll your eyes at how stupidly obvious it all seems and then kick yourself in the ass when you make the rookie mistake of leaving the house too soon with a newly minted potty trained preschooler.

- Spend $7 on a good bottle carpet cleaner. Try not to inhale the highly toxic but very effective fumes. Because like cat puke, no one wants to step in pee-saturated carpet.

- Spend $9.95 on a pack of 7 underroos. Try not to take it personally when he will only wear 2 of the 7 because he only loves the Wonder Pets and does not want Diego nor Spongebob spread across his skinny little cheeks.

- Spend $11.48 on gourmet jelly beans. Try not to gag when you realize that part of the reward is in fondling each and every one of the jelly beans, scooping them up in his little hands and then letting them slip through his fingers like a delicious rainbow of sugary goodness, finally settling on one and holding it in between his fingers, turning it over and over in wonder...even though it's his 50th jelly bean in three days.

- Spend another $17.95 on more underroos because you found a 3 pack that has Ming-Ming, Tuck AND Linny. Try not to laugh out loud when he screams, "Momp! You! found! Linny! I'm gonna wear Linny and I'm not going to pee or poop on her head. But farting is ok. I can fart on Linny. But not poop or pee. That would not be very nice."

- Spend $26 on two cushy for your tushy potty seats. Try not to fall over laughing when he slips off of one of them (the other is still untouched) so many times that he sends it cartwheeling down the stairs in frustration.

- Spend $51 on out-fitting all three bathrooms with Wee-man urinals. Try not to get frustrated when he will only use one of them, leaving the other two to collect dustbunnies. Hmmm...I wonder if dust-bunny moms have it any easier?

- Spend $87 on custom-made training pants. Try to get all your money back on the FSOT (for sale or trade) board at your favorite cloth diapering website when your child decides that "pull-ups" are not his style. All or nothing, baby.

- Spend $440 on cloth diapers so that your son is perpetually marinating his balls in his own urine, prompting him to realize that ew, gross his balls are marinating in his own urine and maybe he should try peeing in the potty like everyone else. Try not to buy one of these.

- Spend $789 on a camera so that you can catch all the priceless moments. Try not to break it.

- Spend $498,552.78* on a house and don't leave it for three days. Try not to get stir-crazed after learning that a freshly potty-trained child will proceed to pee his pants within 20 feet of the front door of Target when faced with the prospect of having to pee in a public restroom.


And TA-DA. That's it. That's all it takes. And one morning, your child too will wake up and exclaim, "I'm wearing my Ming-Ming underwear." And that will be that. It literally took us a few months of flirting with the idea, not counting the time he sat on the potty and read a magazine when he was about 18 months old. And then one morning, he woke up and decided that he was peeing in the potty and he has. Almost exclusively. As long as we're at home. We have yet to successfully pee in public for a 2nd time. And I don't think that pulling off to the side of the road and running him across a mud field and into a port-o-potty and expecting him to pee on some else's floaty turd helped any. But that's a hurdle we will overcome. I just hope it doesn't cost us another half mill.

*Not the actual price of our house.

3 comments to The Half a Million Dollar Potty Training Solution:

AcG said...

Always and entertaining evening at the J's...need I say birth control again? You are birth control for me...

mom2boy said...

Congratulations!! I love the toddler logic of not peeing and pooping on Linny's head. Funny, Mine will ask to use the potty in any restaurant or Target or grocery store but the potty at home - bor-ing! I know I need to just bite the bullet and toss the diapers and be home bound for three days but I just haven't found the nerve. Thanks for sharing your (very funny) success story.

Cloud said...

My solution was to send Pumpkin to day care.

So that only costs, what, about $15,000/year.

She hasn't had an accident at day care in ages. I wish I could say the same about home....

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