Mommy's Kryptonite

I've avoided this topic thus far, because nobody likes to talk about it. Out of all the tasks in parenting, this is, the most dreaded. And if it's not the most dreaded, it's because you haven't experienced it yet. Once you do, you never forget the toll it takes on your life, and the lives of your family. What is it? Potty training, of course.

Potty training is the biggest of big. If parenting was your driver's test, then potty training would be parallel parking... on a foggy day... in downtown Manhattan... during the Thanksgiving Day Parade. It's just daunting. Most people think it's the obvious handling of accidents, that make it so unbearable. For some that may be. But for most moms, potty training woes run deeper than messy underwear.

When potty training your little ones, there is a balance, or equilibrium that you must be careful not to offset. If you make one wrong move, you can set back your training by weeks, even months, and could virtually erase all progress you've made in one foul swoop. I asked a few moms I know to share their tots training stories with me, in hopes to explain better to you, the severity of this task.

Case1: My Nephew
My nephew insists that someone accompany him to the bathroom and tell him a story. We're not talking reading him a book or two. You remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books? He's just like those books. He gives my sister characters (ie. batman, diverman), and scenarios (ie. rescue mission, broken car), and she has to come up with the storyline. Could you imagine? I mean the pressure alone. The clincher is, she can't stray from the story or characters given. If she's feeling creative and adds in her own little twist, let's just say...my nephew isn't pleased.

Case2: My Friend's Son
My friend's son is two and a half and has been pretty easy to train thus far. As long as his mother doesn't upset the routine of things, he will perform on the potty on command. (Actually, my sister and I are amazed, as it took immense coercing to even get our kids to step foot in the bathroom.) Not to say the routine is an easy one to follow. First, the toilet must be free and clear of any kind of debris. We're talking anything from a strand of hair, to a piece of kleenex tissue. If anything is floating in the water when he has to go, the toilet must be flushed completely clean. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but the constant flushing gets very costly. Let's just say when a person has to refinance their home to pay the water bill, that is a pretty big deal. By the way, this fear of abstract, foreign objects, also applies to the bar of hand soap he uses after going to the potty. This means he will stand there and pick every speck of non-soap substance off of the soap, before washing his hands.

As you can imagine, this sort of pickyness can take its toll on a person, mainly the mother. This is when unbelievable, straight-out-of heaven, patience, comes into play. This is also why potty training is such a time consuming venture. Ever see a mother and her toddler go into those one-person bathrooms and not come out for what seems like hours? This is why. They're not going to the bathroom that long, the mom's are just trying to remember the routine, as not to upset their fragile children, and screw up the potty training. Sound a little backwards?

Case#3: My Niece
Now all of these enticements and routines are well and fine, if, that is, you can get your child to actually go to the bathroom. My niece will willingly sit on the potty for you. No problems, no hesitation. The problem is that, that's where she'll stay...potentially forever. My sister once went to a doctor's appointment which lasted fifteen minutes. She would've been in and out, had her daughter not insisted on using the potty. What would have been a quick stop, turned into an all-afternoon outing. She sat on the potty so long, that other patients were actually banging on the door to use the restroom. But what was she to do? She went along with it. Want to know why? She didn't want to upset the equilibrium.

These are the lengths we mothers, must be willing to go to, when potty training. Unfortunately, this is a time in parenting when our children are actually the ones in control. It's just the way it is. Mom's have been manipulated by their children when potty training, for generations. The requests, and rewards, the constant attention...I heard of one mom who promised her kid a trip to Disney World if he went on the potty. You see, these are the extremes we'll go to. We will stop at nothing. Why? Because we're afraid. Afraid of embarrassing accidents, afraid of tantrums, afraid of our kid being the only one in college wearing Pampers. Clearly, potty training is our kryptonite.