Developmental delays

If you've followed my journey for any length of time you probably know that potty training and I are not friends. I loathe potty training. If you don't believe me, take a trip back to June and July, 2008. The summer before Ess and Gee turned three, wherein I answered the door in my bra, let Cue eat dirty toilet paper, oh and let's not forget when I had to fish a ripe turd out of a pool.

And, don't try to tell me about the foolproof method that you used to potty train your eight-month-old in two hours using nothing but double sided tape and dental floss. Don't bother leaving me comments about the awesome video or book or hypnotic potty training method that has brain washed and indoctrinated you into its potty training cult. I don't believe you. I love you, and I still think you're awesome, but you're lying. Potty training stories are like fish stories. Complete. Crap.

I have four kids and a horse that lives inside my house. The only way to potty train something that young and stupid is to spend 99.99% of your days, for a week or more, with its dim-witted little ass hanging over the toilet, until, by a sheer dumb stroke of luck it drops a load in the correct location. And THEN, you can't be all, omfg, finally, I was beginning to think you lacked a frontal lobe. No. You have to say - "YAY!! I'm so proud of you that I have forgotten that for last five days you managed to shit and pee on my floor in the .01% of the time that you weren't sitting on the toilet because I have to, I don't know, eat? drink water? Let's get you a chocolate treat for your amazing ability to soil whatever location your ass happens to be above."

POTTY TRAINING, thoust other name is HELL. With inferno-like, pee-smeared floors.

I adore diapers and I see absolutely no reason to rush children out of them. What is the big hurry? They catch the poop and pee and hold it until one is ready to deal with it. That is a beautiful thing.

So. Cue turned three a month or two ago. Who's counting? Shut up. I had no intention of potty training him despite the fact that he directs his diaper changes like he's freaking Gershwin. Then, we went to his three year well baby check-up. I really like our new pediatrician. She is no nonsense and knowledgeable and her corn rows kick ass and one of these visits, when she is not squashing me like an insignificant bug with her eyes for my inadequate parenting, I am going to ask her where she has her hair done or if she does it herself.

We were mid-visit and she ran efficiently through a long list of questions about Cue's development, speech, hearing, eating, physical abilities, etc., etc. I was nailing the answers, if I do say so myself. What's that? Yes, yes, Cue's well baby check up is all about affirmation of me as a parent. Why? Did you think it was about making sure he's healthy or something?

"Is he potty training?" She asked me with her eyes fixed on the blue formatted screen before her.

"Nuh uh. Nope. Not really." I gave a wide smile. Because, moving on, right? Who cares where the little darling puts his crap as long as I'm willing to wipe his butt. Which I am. Better his butt than my floor.

She turned briefly from her computer to survey me with Dr. Miranda Bailey-esque disdain.

"No," I said in a small voice, "he's not."

"Does he show any interest in potty training?"

"Um, no, I don't, not really, nope." Abject, unending fascinating with the toilet doesn't count, does it?

"Does he ask to use the potty?" All the time.

"No." I met her eyes squarely. I could take the pressure.

"Does he know when he's pooping or peeing and tell you?" Fully. Yes. With glee.

"Not that I've noticed." Today.

"Is he interested in his older brother's potty time?" Define interested. Likes to have his nose in the stream? Does that count?

"I mean no, I don't really let him in there." When I can stop him, which is never.

"Hmmmm. He should be showing some interest by now." I started to sweat. I couldn't sustain the lie, she was going to mark him as potty-delayed or something. I twitched a little when she raised her fingers as if to type something. But she turned back to me, placed her folded hands between her knees and leaned forward to convey the seriousness of the situation. "Developmentally, he should be potty training."

AAARRRRGGGG. She pulled the "developmentally" card. At a well baby check up. I cracked like a thin-shelled egg.

"It's me, okay, it's me. He's asked; I just don't want to deal with it. I'm not ready."

"He's. Asked?"

"Uh huh."

"What do you tell him?"

Oh god oh god oh god. The horror. "Go in your diaper?"

She turned her eyes slowly from the computer to my face and then back to the computer. I squirmed under the contempt in that gaze.

"I like diapers. I hate potty training. It's disgusting."

Stop talking.

"I hate to stop what I'm doing and clean up accidents or go to some gross public restroom."

Stop. Talking.

"You know, he'll pee on my floors. I'll have to clean that gross little Elmo potty. When Gee trained, Cue ate poopy toilet paper. It was a fiasco. I can't do it. I won't do it."

STOP TALKING.

"Diapers are so convenient. Don't make me do it, I hate it so much, oh please, please."

I might have been wrapped around her legs at this point.

"So, developmentally though," she tapped the form on her screen, "he's ready. He's asking. There's nothing wrong with the child."

"Right."

She turned pointedly back to her computer again. "I'm just going to mark here that he is appropriately interested in potty training for his developmental stage." She emphasized the he to accent the point that I clearly was not meeting the developmental standards for a mother my age.

"Okay." I laughed feebly. "I'm sure he'll be potty trained the next time we see you."

"At his four year check up?"

"Yes."

All I have to say is that never have I ever been more glad that well baby checks are only once a year after two years old. He'll totally be potty trained before I see her again.

I think.