P is for Potty....or Prozac

Let the peeing begin!

My youngest, Ruby aka 'Tootie', aka 'Spawn of Satan' aka 'La Diabla" aka...okay, you get the picture, needs to be potty trained.  Soon.  She will turn 3 in December and somewhere along the line somebody-- probably a stay at home mom with one child and a nanny, housekeeper, cook, and personal trainer--decided that it was 'unacceptable' to still be in diapers once you have started pre-school.  Really?! Most of 'em are still sucking their thumb and speaking unintelligibly but an innocent Pull Up isn't kosher? Pre-School (and dance class, for that matter) you're killin' me! 
Side bar: Tootie desperately wants to dance; she climbs into our over sized tub and touches the bottom with both hands while waving one leg in the air.  I think this is her way of 'break-dancing'.  Or she has been watching dogs pee one too many times.  Either way, the dance school has two rules for instructing three year olds in the art of ballet and tapping; be potty trained and be able to follow instruction.  Now, I need some clarification here; follow instruction singular?  Like, if she listens at least once throughout the course of a day then I can send her to class?  Or are we using this word in its plural form? In which I  must then ask, directions consistently or at least twice in a day?  And further, who's instruction?  Her own?Is that an option???  Okay. Deep Breath.  Back to rule number one; potty training.

Not wanting my sweet, chubby cheeked Beelzebub to have further reason to lay prone on a therapists' couch because she was harassed and taunted for the cursed Pull-Up by her fellow toddlers, we began the long and arduous process of pee pee on the potty.

And then Cam decided to regress by no longer peeing in the toilet but rather on the carpet in his room.  Repeatedly--even when I didn't have the door secured with panty hose after three hours of continued escapes peppered with the breaking of glass and random nakedness (it's like a frat party gone bad)--he would whip it out and pee on the carpet.  Any spot will do, he's not picky.  And because one male need to urinate any where but the bathroom isn't enough, the cats will then pee on the same spot.  Frankly, you'd think Tootie would have caught on by now and she'd simply drop her drawers, pop a squat , and pee on the ground at whim.  But no, no one is looking to cut Mommy a break.

I scoured the Internet for tips on how to potty train your toddler when the only time you see her is for three hours at night during the week and every other weekend.  Consistency, consistency, consistency, they all claimed.  Yeah, well screw you, too, Parents magazine.  Daycare won't touch the process but they will 'ask her if she needs to go potty every hour'.  Gee, thanks.  And how many changes of clothes shall I send each day? Because by the time I've asked her, she's naked from the waist down and running madly through the house, which is all bad when I know she was wearing panties just a minute ago.

Ah, the storied panties.  This was another gem from the parenting sites.  Incentive, they call it.  I'm supposed to purchase cute little chonies for my monster as a bribe to convince her that she really does want to pee in the potty, she just doesn't know that yet.  Except that Ruby is nobody's fool.  Parental bribery has turned into a heated game of negotiations.  Gone are the days of one M&M for each trickle Paris made into her singing potty.  No, now Ruby demands a 'Popacle" (Tootie talk for Popsicle or better yet, an Otter Pop that she can trail all over the carpet) for even entertaining the idea of sitting on the potty. So, broken and weary,  I bought a mega-sized bag of M&Ms and explained our strategy to Isaac like a war-time general leading his troops into battle; we'd ask her to go potty, she'd happily run to said potty, and execute her task with grace and expediency.  She'd then earn the coveted M&M.  Riiiight, except Isaac put the bag of 'sorta mushy because they were in the car while I did my errands' M&Ms into the freezer.  And Tootie saw. 
20 minutes later.....
Enter a naked (why can't  my babies stay clothed?!) and cracked-out Ruby covered with a suspicious brown and red substance that appears to be regurgitated M&Ms. Never NEVER let them see you hide the goods! Parenting 101, my dear Watson, parenting 101. But poor Isaac missed that day of university and subsequently the ones before and after.  So, he's learning by trial and error riddled with a need to secure reason and logic from the kids.  Sigh. Amateurs.
Anyway, that first day ended with Ruby passed out in a pool of her own multi-colored saliva because her system couldn't handle the mega-sized bag of M&Ms and she finally succumbed to the abhorrent need for sleep.  I assured my shell-shocked boyfriend--who by the way, cannot stand anything being spilled on the floor much less the urine of a two year old puddling on the tile--that this was a normal first day of the potty process and that tomorrow would surely be a better day.  Yes, I'm a liar.  No, I have no shame.
One week has gone by since that fateful day.  Much pee was shed.  Many tears were wiped (Isaac took the madness like a champ but in the end, this pee pee war was simply too much for him; and the multiple cases of Coors Light). And Ruby aka "Tootie' aka "Spawn of Satan' aka "La Diabla" aka.... well, you get the idea, still sports her pink Pull-Up like a boxer strutting into the ring; she knows she got to us. 

And I'm fairly certain that when no one is looking, when no one can hear, Tootie slinks into the bathroom and does, in fact, execute her pee pee business with grace and expediency.  And she's silently laughing, maniacally, to herself the entire time.