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Monday, May 24, 2010

Hitching a Ride on the Toilet Train


There are few sights more pathetic than a mother sitting on the edge of a bathtub waiting for a child to make a deposit in the toilet. She is nothing but a groveling pawn--dancing and handing out treats while her ruthless child masterfully pulls the puppet strings. It isn’t right.




Since I am the mother of five children who were completely potty trained before they could drive, I would like to offer my expertise and three tried and true methods to help you maintain your dignity.


The “Village” Method

Send your kid forth into the neighborhood to spend one day with each neighbor, each of whom has already bragged to you about being an expert with a magic method to cure children of their nasty diaper habits. By the time your little one has spent a day with each one of your weird neighbors, junior will run home and greet your toilet like an old friend.




The “Natural” Method

This involves total nudity and a miniature surveillance camera. Junior will be happy because he is naked except for the camera strapped around his chest that is focused on the plumbing area. You will be comfortably ensconced in your lazy boy watching the TLC channel, occasionally checking the video monitor that is right next to your Route 44 Diet Coke from Sonic. When you catch sight of a plumbing leak or eruption, you will leap, sprint, scoop up Junior and plop him on the toilet. Junior will eliminate and you will have eliminated all that boring bathtub perching time.


The “Positive Humiliation” Method 

When Junior is settled in bed for the night with his Buzz Light Year quilt tucked under his dimpled chin, tell him the story of “Diaper Man”. Diaper man is the bad guy who comes in the window at night to see which lazy little kids are still wearing diapers. If he catches you in XXL Huggies, he will immediately call Dora the Explorer on his cell phone and she will then make fun of you on TV the next day with the whole world watching and everyone will laugh but you because you don’t understand Spanish.

WC Feliz todo el mundo





13 comments:

Lydia Kang said...

This is so timely bc my just-over-two year old is on the verge of toilet training and I am wishing she was in daycare so they could do it for me!

Mrs. Beer said...

"everyone will laugh at you because you don't understand spanish" Bahahahaha

Susan Anderson said...

If only I had read this 33 years ago...

;)

Rachael said...

Oh boy did I need this one today after a nightmarish day of training the little girl!

Pam said...

Diaper Man....I think you've started a new classic urban legend. lol

Jo Schaffer said...

HAHA! Oh, I'm still trying to get my youngest to use the toilet with no end in sight. Boo.

Janet Johnson said...

Oh man . . . potty-training is the worst part of parenthood. I'm certain. I really lucked out with my last one. He did it all himself. One more to go . . . I'm so crossing my fingers.

mary said...

Well, I decided and went with the hurry-up-and-read-all-the posts option, so now have no new ones to read. What are you going to do about it?

Also, does your blog title have anything to do with a long-ago movie actress named Larraine Day?

You are a funny, funny woman. You do make me laugh, and you take on the idiocies which get under my skin, but you say it funnier than I could.

Anonymous said...

Not if Sniper beats her to it! Sneaky fox!

R A C H A E L said...

Swiper no swipey!!

Celeste Dana said...

I can't believe I never thought of using a bi-linqual cartoon figure to coax my uni-lingual children to be potty trained. Brilliant!

Kat's Purrfect Boutique said...

I started toilet training my daughter when she was close to three (read that it was the magic number). Shortly before her third birthday she started daycare so I could work as a Substitute teacher.

Anyways, It was a struggle..up and down, but I was glad that the preschool teachers taught her how to do it. They 3 toilets side to side so that there was peer pressure. lol

RoeH said...

This seems so much easier that how I handled it. Course she was up for high school graduation when she finally 'got it' but you gotta think about the good things. I'd rather dig up a whole coal mine than do that again. Just sayin'. :)