By Julie Watts of Mummy Spits the Dummy
Well, it’s happening! Callooh, callay – my second and final baby is learning how to use the toilet. We’re finally going to be out of diapers FOREVER! Welcome to Dry Big-Girl-Pants Town, population: us. Huzzah! Let us proceed to donate all the unused diapers, to dismantle and ceremonially burn the changing table, and to buy huge shares in hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes!
…No, wait. Hold that thought just a minute. Keep that last bag of pull-ups. Don’t put the deposit down for the marching band just yet. It seems she’s – shall we say – still a bit particular about when and how she will consider it appropriate to use the toilet.
Times when my toddler does NOT want to use the toilet:
• Before going to bed.
• Before having a bath.
• Before getting into the car.
• Before leaving the house.
Times when my toddler would quite like to use the toilet, please:
• Ten minutes after going to bed.
• In the middle of having a bath.
• Anytime the toilet is occupied by another family member.
• While being strapped into her car seat, when we are already late for school.
• Halfway through grocery shopping or a doctor’s appointment.
• Anytime I sit down and/or pick up the phone.
Times when my toddler passionately insists that she MUST use the toilet, and no alternative will do:
• 5.00 am on a Sunday.
• When we are driving on the highway at 70 mph with no exit in sight.
• Almost at the end of grocery shopping, while I am loading food onto the checkout conveyor and cannot excuse myself without inconveniencing multiple shoppers behind me.
• When I have just toasted and buttered the last two pieces of bread in the house for my breakfast, and they are actually hot at the same time as my coffee.
• At the playground, where the only throne available is a lightless, seatless cavern of stench, into which she will dangle her tiny bottom and angrily refuse any assistance. Obviously, I will spend the entire time panicking that she’s going to fall right in, she will touch every disgusting surface in the place as she clambers on and off the toilet, and there’s no soap.
• En route to the parking lot at the mall, where we have three minutes left on the meter and have already made two fruitless visits to the miniature toilet in the parents’ room. I will hear myself telling her crossly to ‘Just go in your pants!’ as she repeatedly sobs ‘Needy doo-a wee-wee, Mummy! Needy go-a torlet!’, feel the shame of being a cruel, heartless mother, then sigh and hoof it to the smelly adult toilet that is our only nearby option. Once there, she will happily sit on the giant seat and doo-a wee-wee all over her dress, which I’ve failed to hold out of the way adequately.
Somebody pass the antibacterial wipes. And the gin please…
This post was originally published on Mummy Spits the Dummy.
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About Julie Watts
Julie Watts is a caffeine-abusing, snort-laughing, housework-shirking mother-of-two who lives in sunny Queensland. She quit Facebook to remember the real world, and now blogs about her lacklustre parenting ability (among other things) at Mummy Spits the Dummy. You can follow her antics on Twitter.