On death, dying and potty training

If you have ever had the pleasure of spending a little time with my three-year-old, you would be shocked and amazed at the information you could receive. Depending on his mood, you just might get a discourse on death and dying as that has been a popular subject. My death and ultimate demise is especially good fare. I cannot tell you how pale I get or how much my hands sweat when he brings this topic up. I wonder if maybe he knows something that I don't!

This has become a troublesome topic as of late and I am afraid of why his little mind seems to be completely preoccupied with death and dying. This seems like way too heavy of a topic for a three-year-old. Let alone the three-year-old of vegetarian, Buddhist parents. But as it is, I would hazard a guess that almost all of our conversations lately revolve around the condition of his pants and my death. These two seemingly unrelated ideas have wound themselves into the fabric of our everyday lives.

I guess it began with potty training which we began in earnest one January. We surmised that after many failed attempts that Logan was now ready; which if you are about to begin this task is an essential ingredient I would say far more important than say you being ready. Gracie was a little young but I was only going to do this once. My husband and I enlisted expert help from the self proclaimed Queen of Potty Training and hunkered down for what turned out to be the longest 3-day weekend of our lives.

Day 1 - Removal of diapers and the donning of underwear.
This was met with not-so-quiet defiance and resistance. Next, all the unused diapers are rounded up and hurled into the garbage in an invigorating game of "today we grow up!" My guilt about using disposable diapers in the first place would just not allow me to fill the landfills further so I discretely packaged up all of the diapers, wipes and related creams and donated them to charity. The day then devolved into following the kids EVERYWHERE! I mean FOR EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY! If you don't know how hard this is just try it for an hour and then have a neutral third party evaluate your sanity. The thought is that you will catch them in the act and once you catch them in the act, you quickly pick them up and run them to the potty. Once at the potty, you place them on the potty, allow them to finish and then make a big deal that they did it! What actually happened was that we placed them on the potty one second after they were done eliminating. Whoever was running behind the mad potty dash usually skidded through urine or excrement and quickly abandoned further thought of witnessing the blessed potty event. Let me tell you that I was not happily dishing out mini m&m's and praise. By the end of Day 1 my husband and I were absolutely ok with both of our kids moving from Pampers to Depends.

DAY 2 - Moving forward?
More of the same but both kids did start to get some of their bodily fluids into the toilet. By Day 3 – Logan had it. He did poop the kitchen floor once on Day 1 but what is a little guy to do when he is being rushed by his father like a linebacker through the kitchen at NFL speeds? At the end of a very long weekend in which my husband and I were held hostage to the digestive systems of our 21 month old and 3 year old, Logan emerged potty trained! The mad dashes to the potty, the bribes, the potty fairy sticks and never leaving their side for 3 full days left us all exhausted and in need of a little space. Gracie still had a little way to go but all in all – the kids were trained! I felt victorious!

For about 15 minutes – because the moment Gracie got it Logan regressed. Now at first I thought it was just a bad day. Then a week passed by and I realized that my sweet boy was beginning to smell like an alley wino! I noticed that the laundry – the bottomless mountain of laundry – was growing. What I found was a very large sampling of Logan's clothes and the entire mass of spent clothing reeked of urine. Enough! I sat him down. We talked. We discussed. I bribed. I bribed again. I walked away confident that the urine stench would be leaving us for another 50 or 60 years until it was my turn.

Fast forward 6 months, to the middle of June, 6 full months since the potty "train" left the proverbial station. Gracie embarked and is trained. Logan embarked sort of…he poops in the potty…and pees in his pants. He is capable of peeing in the toilet. I have seen him do it on more than one occasion. Determined, I begin to try everything a good mother would – I begin with bribery and when that doesn't work I up the ante with more bribery with better bribes. I threaten. Threats are completely useless so I use those more…all to no avail. I try discourse. Nothing! I enlist the grandparents' assistance because they have resources that far surpass ours in the bribery department. I try my best to ignore the behavior but I just can't. Can anyone tell me how when the checkout clerk at Target tells you "Hey, lady, your son is peeing his pants!" Exactly how I am to ignore that? "No he isn't. Nothing is happening here." Do I then take the time to explain to the pimply faced overgrown adolescent, "I am trying to potty train him and he is not cooperating so I am just ignoring it?" I am pretty confident that child protective services would meet me at my car! No matter what I did, I got nothing…nothing but wet pants!

And so it goes. I try to ignore in the relative safety of my own home. I praise when he is dry and when I fail at the ignoring which is pretty much all the time, I comment on the state of his pants and my disappointment – sometimes in a nice voice and sometimes not. I am smart enough to know that there is something going on with him but not smart enough to figure it out. When I ask him about why he continues to pee his pants and send me over the edge he says with a devilish grin, "Gracie taught me." "Well she pees in the potty now so you can too!" I encourage. To this Logan says "I am a big boy mommy but I need to pee in my pants – that is just how I have to do it." "Why?!?!?" I exclaim. Logan delights "I don't need to grow up too fast, mommy!" I slap my forehead which is better than what I want to slap and bow my head in complete defeat. "You will just be the only kid in college to pee your pants." I respond. Logan yells, "I don't want to go to college!" as he runs from the room. Several days later, I overhear Logan telling Gracie that if she pees her pants mommy will send her to college too. Great – I have now unsuccessfully potty trained my son and at the same time sealed his fate and now perhaps Gracie's that they will never go to college. I am a total failure as a parent. I mean who else could screw up potting training and remove college from the agenda at one time?

But as life usually does – a few weeks go by and then like a flash I get a different perspective on the potty training issue. We are driving home from the gym and Logan starts talking about me dying…again. Logan says tearfully "Mommy, I do not want you to die." I launch into what is becoming an all too familiar discourse on the nature of death and dying scripted of course to be age appropriate for a three-year-old. But I barely get started and he stops me and says, "No, mommy, you aren't going to die today but later when I get older." My first thought is "how the hell does he know that today is not my day" followed quickly with the hope that perhaps he has just shed a little daylight on the pee pee pants.

Perhaps it is this fear of him growing older and me dying that is why he does not want to grow up! Possibly he is not too lazy, distracted or busy. Maybe he is not intent on causing me to have a complete breakdown. Possibly Logan has figured out at 3 ½ that if he ages so do I. In his little innocent mind he thinks that if he continues to wet himself he can't grow up and in so doing can prevent himself and the mother he loves from also aging and finally dying. It is hard to point out flaws in logic to a three-year-old so I don't even try. But I see for the first time that even though he can't tell time, he is acutely aware of time and its ramifications. I somehow thought that if you couldn't tell time then maybe it didn't affect you. But it appears that our society's mantra of "do everything you can to stop the hands of time" has been passed on to my three-year-old son. Now he is not out shopping for Oil of Olay or other products designed to keep us safe and protected from the constant tick-tock. But acutely aware he is. While I am still dismayed at the state of his pants, I am heartened that despite the daily dose of urine stained pants and undergarments he loves me enough to pee in his pants to keep me vertical and breathing. There aren't many other people on the planet that would willing wet themselves to prevent my ultimate demise. I am honored and grateful that he loves me this much. All those moments of complete and utter exasperation melt away. I am not sure how I am going to move him through this and back onto the potty where his little precocious butt belongs. I do know that I am grateful that he is so smart, loves me and has taught me that the clock ticks but it is us who wind it up.