I can’t put it off any longer. The dreaded PT is upon us and actually I think I would rather be shouted at in the gym for an hour than face the real reality of…
Potty training.
As a mum of two boys I am outnumbered in the toilet department, and have to just accept that for the foreseeable future, I will have to sprint to the toilet ahead of any guests to make sure they don’t get soggy socks, or worse. If only that was a joke.
I have shamefully made a swift exit from a local café that has a small area of soft-play after my first born decided the artificial grass looked too realistic. The fact he is comfortable, as actor Jack Black would put it, to ‘drop-trou’ in nature comes with its own horrifying tales but this might have been the worst of his toilet antics. I can only assume I have the ‘flight over fight’ instinct to account for the dash. A moment impressed on my memory as a parenting low point, normally popping into my head just as I am falling asleep.
I have read hundreds of advice articles online, even delving into the lengthy opinionated threads on Mumsnet to no avail. Nappy-free time always leads to accidents and Wilf is the child who will happily sit in wet pants, I am guessing until they dry out again?
The only time he is willing to sit on the potty is after he has filled his nappy. His odd thought process in which he thinks if he sits on the potty after the event, he will skip the cleaning process, like the potty has some magical cleaning process of its own.
Perhaps he has seen a self-cleaning toilet during one of his Youtube sessions. It would surprisingly be a lot more interesting than watching an American child unpackage and play with a toy Wilf actually owns and could be playing with in real life himself. That would be far too sensible.
So alas I am in limbo, trying to remind myself that no grown man crawls into a board room meeting in a nappy as he never learnt to walk or use a toilet.
Although now I have written it, perhaps it doesn’t seem completely inconceivable in a morning after a drug-fueled bender, Wolf of Wall Street, lads in the city-esque way.
Ailsa Clarke Adams 