My #1 doing the #2

I'm feeling rather sheepish these days.  I have been putting off potty training my son for months. Not so much because I didn't think he was ready but because I had a somewhat paralyzing fear of what it would entail and couldn't seem to muster the energy to actually overcome it. I have been to medical school, spent countless 36hour shifts awake in residency, ran a marathon, and birthed two kids but somehow the idea of having to transition from the ease of diapers to the constant vigilance of a mother with a potty-training child was just too much of a hurdle to jump. So I dawdled.  Fortunately, though, my son (and my husband) are less intimidated by pulling out their collective man parts and peeing into the wild blue yonder.  Two weeks ago, my sweet first child decided the potty was a pretty neat thing.  He wanted to sit on it at night and was fairly successful for most of the week.  So, last weekend, as I spent half the day at work, Matilda stayed at home with both kids and asked Jack every 10 minutes if his newly donned Cars underwear was dry and to remember to tell him if he had to potty.  It was mind-numbingly repetitive.  After 48 hours of this, I wasn't feeling like we had gotten very far and my worst fears of this whole potty-training mess seemed to be materializing.  The entire following week at daycare, Jack wanted nothing to do with the mini-porcelain throne at school.  He would show anyone within a 15ft radius his new underwear by dropping his pants to his ankles in dramatic fashion and grabbing his crotch in an innocent though exaggerated way while announcing he had on UNDERWEAR, but pee into the toilet he would not.  Oddly enough, this past weekend, something just clicked in his tiny weird brain and he never once missed an opportunity to visit the shiny white seat.  When I went to pick him up today from daycare, the report was a total success. Not one accident. When I heard those words, I expected angels to come out of the air vents and the teachers to burst into harmonious song.  I expected Jack to come around the corner wearing a crown and sash reading "Worlds Smartest and Most Pee-Perfect Boy."  I expected, at the very least, incredibly approving looks and butt-slapping congratulations all around.  But, alas, it was said with as much fervor as what color Play-doh my daughter ate that day.  Anti-climatic is an understatement.

That's all to say, I had steeled myself for a multi-month battle with the mini-plastic commode and now feel rather embarrassed that I came dressed for a joust to what materialized as a jovial game of badminton. I'm sure writing this post will be the moment when my luck turns and the urine-wars begin but, I hope with emblazoned optimism, that my first born son will continue his trend of placing his #1 and #2 in the proper and much less disgusting receptacle.