Potty Training

It boggles the mind, how smart kids are and how quickly they pick things up. Potty training babies is a great challenge but a fun one when the little one in question is just too smart for YOUR own good!

My daughter is the sweetest little thing and smart as a whip. She started potty training at just over a year old but REFUSED to use the potty chair I got her, wanting to use the big toilet like everyone else. Because of her tiny size and the fact that she kept falling in, she had a rough time. She is an independent little booger, too. A couple of months ago, she decided it was time to stop being a "baby" and be a big girl, no more diapers. She finished her potty training in this short time and has only occasional accidents.

It is the occasional accident in combination with a fearsome intelligence in a strong-willed child that had me rolling on the floor in hysterics one day. The poor girl is too short to reach the doorknob to the bathroom and turn it, and someone closed it tight so she could not get in. She needed to go, and fast. Unfortunately, she did not make it in time and pooped her pants. This made her cry, sitting on the toilet, yelling "I SHIT, I SHIT, I SHIT" over and over and over.

Now, we all know too well the dangers of saying naughty words in front of little ears, but sometimes they slip out and those little ears grab them fast and those tiny brains store them up just like a computer. What had me laughing so hard was not the fact that she kept saying it, but that she was actually using the word appropriately and not merely randomly repeating something she had overheard. We cleaned her up, told her it was okay and just an accident that she could not help and would do better next time, and pleeeeeeeeease do not say "shit" anymore. She turned those big brown eyes up at me and it got me all over again - she knew she should not say that word, but in frustration and anger at having pooped in her pants, it just came out, kind of like with big people.

Ahhh, the joys of parenting. Soon we get to start the boy's potty training!!!! Wonder how long until he is standing next to the toilet peeing on the floor instead of in the toilet, as almost always happens without fail with little boys....