mindless woman, mindless ramblings

Name: Jordan Malik Vincent
DOB: May 22, 2003
Age: 3 years, 6 months, 20 days
Height: 3′4″
Weight: 37 lbs
Offense: assault with a deadly diaper

In other words, this genteel, pointy-eared, gnome-looking child of mine has had his father and me in complete and utter potty-training hell. We’ve tried every trick in the book: standing back and waiting until he showed signs of readiness (which never came), giving firm, but gentle pressure, and much later, firm, but even more firm pressure. We tried potty training books, videos, award charts, and toys.

When Kaelyn was born, Frank and I bought gifts for the older three kids which we said were from the baby. In the hospital, the kids happily ripped the paper from their presents. Kyra gushed over her new princess dress-up costume. Jaiden couldn’t wait to get home to watch his new movie. And Jordan – he shouted with glee when the unwrapped corner of his present revealed a new Elmo toy, but he immediately retreated into a melodramatic, dour pout, complete with severely furrowed eyebrows and puckered, protruding lips once he realized that Elmo was *gasp* using the potty. I’m sure he was thinking to himself, ”Elmo, you damned traitor!”

 He took one look at that Elmo-with-the-big-monster-underwear and toilet (with REAL flushing sounds!), almost casually cast it aside, then not-so casually cast Frank and me the evil eye, as if we should have been burned alive at the stake or taken to the guillotine for having dared to grace his anti-toilet presence with a frivolity so insulting as a dumping Muppet.  As if. My soft-hearted munchkin had suddenly transformed into a glowering troll.

Until recently, he couldn’t even be bothered with taking off his own clothes. Any act of self-undressing put him dangerously too close to the “next they’ll make me go sit on the potty” possibility. Any suggestion that he should remove his clothing, even if it was just to take a bath with the twins (his favorite part of the day) resulted in another Jekyll and Hyde metamorphasis. Frank and I finally refused to take his clothes off for him, hence, no bath. Three days of stinky feet (which he abhors) and no bubbly fun quickly cured him of that problem.

Still, Frank and I had to endure Jordan’s seething hatred for all other things related to putting his butt on the crapper. He never fussed, or whined, cried, or got insolently disrespectful (he knows far better than to act out or use forbidden tones of voice). But his sudden change in demeanor was enough to make Frank and I begin to doubt our child-rearing skills (“We can’t get the kid to use the toilet, how in the hell are we going to get him to graduate college?”).

Finally, blessedly, after many months of parental consternation and defeat, the tides are beginning to turn. Jordan has peed in the potty at least once every day the past week (after we tell him to go sit on the toilet), and while he has had several accidents, he has even gone for hours at a time in big boy underwear. And he has done this all without making us ponder the possibility that he was headed for homicidal dissociative personality disorder. Gone is the fearsome troll and returned is my magically-delicious leprechaun. Good heavens – maybe we didn’t screw him up after all.

This morning I received a call from Frank while I was in the middle of class. He put Jordan on the phone and in the background I heard him say, “Tell Mommy what you just did.”  With an overload of pride, Jordan gleefully exclaimed, “I pooped on the potty!” Right there in class, amid the watchful eyes of 27 8th graders, I jumped around like a blooming idiot and squealed to Jordan how happy I was that he had actually pooped on the potty (which of course sent my kids into peals of laughter).

Frank went on to tell me the story of how Jordan had a pee accident in his underwear. He cleaned him up and gave Jordan a new pair of underwear. Jordan stopped just short of putting his left foot in his new Spiderman undies (I call them “tighty-Spideys”) when he said, “I have to go poop.” He walked to the bathroom, took his seat on the mighty throne of bodily expulsion, and dropped one hefty turd. It was green (what the heck did he eat yesterday?). It was solid. It was slightly curved. I cried tears of toilet-related happiness. Thanks to Frank’s descriptions, I felt like I was there.

Shit happens. Sometimes it’s good shit. I’m so happy that Jordan finally seems to be getting his together.