"I pooped in the potty today"

"I pooped in the potty today"

Those six words still make my heart stop.

"Really? Did Miss Valerie help you?" (Miss Valerie watches Natalie on Monday and Tuesday after preschool.)

"No. I just went and did it myself."

If you don't have kids, stop reading. Because I can't possibly convey the magnitude of those words - it's just not possible. If you do have kids, stop reading. Because you already understand what I'm about to say. The rest of you, keep reading.

Natalie is the world's greatest kid (really!). Not a week goes by when someone doesn’t complement how polite she is, how kind she is or how good she is at sharing. (All her mom's doing by the way).

But HOLY COW this kid didn’t want to get potty trained!

The problem wasn’t with #1. It was ALL #2. And it wasn’t about “could she?” It was all about control and she had it. All of it. I imagine her playing with her Barbies and telling them how fun it was to mess with mommy’s and daddy’s heads.

Today’s world of kid-raising is more competitive than a Yankees-Red Sox playoff series. I can’t tell you the number of times that we heard the following: “My little pooky-face was potty trained by 8 months and it only took 14 minutes to teach her.” Parent-speak translation “I’m a better parent than you’ll ever be. You are a complete, total and utter failure at child-rearing.”

Now I had taken the long view on this – Natalie was not going to college without being potty trained. But even my confidence had begun to erode.

The worst part was, you KNEW when she had to go! She got a little fidgety. Complained her tummy hurt. But, sit her on the potty – nothing. Until you pulled up her pants.

And all those tips that everyone has – we tried them all. When someone offered, our response was inevitably “Yeah, we tried that 8 months ago”.

Finally, it all came down to a battle of wills. Natalie had to go and we knew it. Appropriately enough it was July 4th. I put Natalie in her chair and I sat in mine. We stared across the room at each other like two cowboys at high noon. I told her she could do anything she wanted – read, play, listen to music – but she was either in that chair or on the potty. Meanwhile I kicked back with “War and Peace”. At about page 312 she said she had to go. But alas, nothing. Page 438 – same thing. Finally at page 567 – IT HAPPENED!

The world changed for me that day. It got a little brighter. The angels sang a little bit louder. I imagine that any parent whose child just discovered the cure for cancer couldn’t be prouder. And let me tell you - since that day you can count on both hands the number of times she’s had an accident (as long as you’re a 17-fingered mutant).

So next time you see your Mom or Dad and they look like they’re having a bad day, be sure to tell them…

“I pooped in the potty today”

Failure and Redemption

As a father, I have failed my daughter. But through recognition and I can begin to seek redemption.

Let me explain…

Sunday, as Natalie was watching football she suggested that we build a fort in our TV room. She has these wonderful cardboard blocks that required a working knowledge of building design to assemble. In fact I put them together with the help of a professional builder (remember Dave?). Anyway, these blocks are nearly indestructible, at least for little girls (and I would imagine little boys).

Not remembering the blocks (although they were sitting right across the room), I suggested that she build a fort our of the coach cushions.

Natalie said “Build them out of couch cushions?” and gave me that look that our Lab, Scout, gives me when I’m explaining what I do for a living. You know the look – kind of quizzical with the head cocked to one side.

That was when I realized I’d failed my daughter.

See my job is to teach her to be fearless, educate her on the finer subtleties of cheeseburgers and show her other useless stuff in life, like how to whistle, make paper airplanes, to maximize the splash when she jumps in puddles AND HOW TO MAKE FORTS OUT OF COACH CUSHIONS!

That I hadn’t done this, or even realized that I hadn’t done this, until she was 4 years, 5 months and 24 days old will go down as one of my great tragedies as a father.

I knew I could fix this. I promptly ripped all the cushions, pillows and blankets off the couch and started building. We used chairs and footstools for greater structural integrity, built a grand entrance, and best of all, added a skylight for Natalie to poke her head out of.

Needless to say, Natalie, having never known such a thing was possible, was AMAZED! At that point, she took control – we needed a blanket to hide the secret entrance and cushions to line the floor. Once that was done, we needed to build a fort for blankie. I don’t speak blankie, but Natalie assured me that the pile of pillows covered by a blanket were very impressive to blankie…

Next weekend we’re going to take the cushions off the couch in the other rooms and build a multi-room, multi-story fort. All that sounded cool, but Natalie made me promise that it would have a skylight for her to poke her head out of.