Because my son, Kyle, is almost two, there is an upcoming battle hanging over my head like a storm cloud. An unpleasant thought lurking at the back of my mind. A white elephant in every room. Well, it’s probably a brown elephant:

The prospect of potty training.

The whole idea of potty training Kyle is something I have danced around and denied for months. Then when I found out I was pregnant again, I thought, “Hey, what a great time to start potty training!” It seemed like a brilliant idea since if we got it over with well in advance of our new baby’s birth, we’d only have one kid in diapers. So I bought a potty and a couple of books (Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day was laughably ridiculous and Diaper Free Before Three seemed to appeal to my academic nature) and started formulating a plan. Kyle was only 16 months old at the time but my plan was to have the potty around for him to get used to and gradually work on the whole thing so that it would be relatively painless for all involved.

As I put my seemingly logical plan into action, several obstacles presented themselves. First of all, the kid would not sit on the potty for one split second. He would play with the potty, take the potty apart, put his head through the little toilet opening, but he would never actually SIT on the potty. I tried reading stories to him while he sat there, but that didn’t work either. I had to face it — he was too young to potty train that way.

I have heard of children who potty trained very early, in fact, I have read articles about people who have their babies trained from six months old. More power to them, I say. Those parents say they can “sense” when the tot needs to pee or poo. The only time I can sense those urges in Kyle is when he is grunting and his face is turning red.

So, for the past several months (since I admitted temporary defeat the potty has mocked me from its position in the guest bathroom as Kyle’s stepstool. Every now and then his father or I will suggest he pee in the toilet, and we move the potty/stepstool over there so he can pee standing up, like Daddy. But the most we’ve gotten out of him is a gleeful “SHHHHH!” sound, which makes total sense because that’s what we do when we’re trying to urge him to pee. In general, I relegated potty training to that category of things I will deal with when he and I are both ready.

We are not afraid of pee, his father and I. We are also not afraid of poo. Ask any parent of a young child — we are used to it. We smell it everywhere, we’ve had it on our hands, on our clothing, in our beds. As a concept, it is disgusting, but when you live with it everyday it becomes commonplace. We are practiced at the art of breathing without smelling.

So we don’t mind changing Kyle’s diapers. He still lays on the changing table for us, albeit with the entire length of his legs hanging over the end because he’s so tall now. But something is changing. Since he’s older, he has developed the ability to time his pee: that little fountain that used to happen by accident? It now comes deliberately with a naughty glint in his eye as he lets loose at the precise moment that the diaper is off.

So that was the first sign that Kyle is aware of his power. And we’ve been getting reports from his daycare provider that he likes to shout “Poo!” as he’s making some in his pants. He will even say, “Bye-bye caca” when someone is flushing the toilet. I have learned that “Caca” is Spanish for “Poo poo” — so he’s even multilingual in his awareness. All the same, I’ve continued in my denial, figuring once again that we will potty train when he is “ready.” After all, I’m 8 months pregnant and very, very slow.

Until last weekend, during what we like to call the Great Potty Initiation of 2007. (There are a lot of historical events in our household. See The Great Nap Wars of 2005.) We were all happily playing in the backyard — me, Daddy, and Kyle. I mean Kyle was playing and Daddy was working in the garden and I was, well, gestating (sitting in a chair and hoping I didn’t have to get up.

Suddenly, Kyle stood up and shouted, “Poo!” I asked him if he had some in his diaper. He said, “Yeah!” So I checked — there was none. I asked him if he wanted to poop in the potty. He said, “NO!” Gripped by temporary madness, I said, “Why don’t we try anyway?” and I scooped all 35 pounds of him up and lurched to the bathroom. The potty hasn’t been used as a potty in so long that I had to search for the pieces to make it functional, but I got him seated and comfy with a book and we read it together. During our second pass through the book, Kyle looked up at me with a huge grin on his face and… grunted. And grunted. And what do you know, PLOP went the poo, and I believe we are now officially Potty Training our firstborn child. I called Daddy into the bathroom and we all looked at what was in the potty and there was much rejoicing.

Of course I can’t really take credit for that first success. Kyle really shined in that one.
Subsequent attempts have turned up nothing but a floor covered with pee. (Who knew you had to teach little boys to point it down?) But I can no longer deny that the signs are there — Kyle knows what he’s doing and he is ready. His favorite book is Big Boys Use the Potty. Never mind that I will have a baby in less than 6 weeks and there will be that much less of me to run around spiriting children to potties. It’s just another area in which Daddy will have to pick up the slack. It’s only fair, right?

– Kim Tracy Prince

Kim is the loving mother of one very energetic toddler with No. 2 on the way! She has worked on the hit show, “Bringing Home Baby.” Have a comment for our very blunt Mama? kim@themommytimes.com