Sunday, June 10, 2012

Potty Time

This weekend has sucked.  I mean, really, really sucked.  The kind of weekend where the world doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense, and you find yourself asking questions that you know you'll never get an answer to.  I hate to see people I love suffer and not be able to do anything about it.  I really do wish it had been me-not for altruistic reasons, but for selfish ones.  Because I can deal with my own pain better than I can sit there and watch someone else's.  Not going into detail because it's not my place and not my business to, but suffice to say, getting out of bed has been a challenge these past few days.  If Henry didn't need me, I doubt I would have gotten up at all.  And like I said, I didn't get the worst of it.  Some broken hearts.

And Ben hasn't been around, he's dealing with some family health issues of his own, so I decided to throw my energy into some potty training.  Henry's shown increasing interest in his potty and ours, and he's started to take his diaper off, which is super fun.  Depending on when you catch that, you either have to go hunting for puddles or change some crib sheets. Thankful for mattress pads.  He needs to not sleep in a pee-soaked crib, and I needed a distraction and a way to ward off coming in and seeing that he's done worse in his crib than peed (and then, according to my kid-having friends, most likely fingerprinted with it).

With that in mind, I set out with the old-fashioned method in mind-outright bribery.  We went to the store and picked out "potty candy" and I've been letting Henry run around naked a lot.  He's got his dad's attitude about nudity-and if you've ever been around Ben at a raging party, particularly if it's his birthday, then you know what that is.  Not me.  I hate being naked and am probably a step away from wearing denim cutoffs a la Tobias in Arrested Development.  Never nude!

We've also strategically placed the potty in front of the TV, so he can just sit and relax on it while he watches TV.  He's got a real obsession with the Muppets, so we watch that almost daily (well, parts of it.)  I figure it could be worse.  I'm a big Muppets fan, so it's not too much of a hardship, and I figure if they ever do a remake I have all the songs and dance steps down at this point.  So today has been a lot of basic conversation, which is about all I can handle.

HIM:  Potty?
ME:  Yes, potty.  Pee pee in the potty.
HIM:  Pee pee?
ME:  Yes.  If you pee pee you get candy.
HIM:  Candy candy candy candy candy candy?
ME:  Only if you go pee pee in here (me pointing to potty).
HIM:  (swaying back and forth to Rainbow Connection).

Jealous?  I thought you would be.  Remember this when you're out with friends discussing art and wine.

So anyway, he sat on the potty naked for basically the entire Muppets movie (the only time you can do this in your life without the judgment of others).  Then he got up and said "All done!" and handed me an empty potty.  I sighed and went to get a diaper, but he went to the bathroom door, pointed, and said "Potty!"  I figured, what the hell, so I took him in there and put him on the toilet.

And he peed.  Any parent knows that much celebration occurred then.  I've been excited before, but I don't know that I'm a good enough writer to describe the excitement that comes with knowing that sometime in the near future diapers may not be part of your life.  I wasn't this excited when I got my grades back my last semester of college and realized that despite majoring in alcohol and bad decisions I was going to graduate.

I know it's a work in progress, but a step in the right direction.  I called Ben to tell him the whole story, and after I was done, he said "Well, isn't that just like him."

That it is.