Adventures in potty training

Last night I tweeted the following:

This followed a series of events that could be described as a misfortune.

Let me start by saying we are just starting the potty training process. The little small plastic potty has been sitting out for months, and when lil’ man feels like it, he sits on it. We ask him if he wants to go potty at night, and when he tells us that he pooped (which he does after-the-fact) we tell him he can use the potty for that. In recent days, however, lil’ man has shown a bit more interest in starting the training process. He has started the habit of pulling his pants down and tugging on his diaper. At school, he does the same thing, and we have decided to get into this potty training thing a bit more.

Last night before bed I asked the lil’ man if he needed to potty. He said yes, so I took his pants and diaper off and walked him to his potty. After sitting there for a few seconds, he got up and shut the door on me. I guess he wanted a little privacy. Understanding that everyone needs a little privacy when doing their business, I sat down in a chair in his room and waited. A couple minutes later he came out, but when I asked if he was done, he said no and went back in, closing the door behind him.

Another couple minutes went by and lil’ man announced, “I’m done. I pooped!” He then opened the door and ran out. It was then that I noticed he was leaving little brown tracks behind him. My first reaction was to yell, “No! Stop!” I will now say that this was no the appropriate reaction as it scared the little guy and caused him to start crying. Scooping him up, I stood him in the sink to clean his foot off because somehow there was a little piece of brown stuck to the bottom. I figured he had somehow stepped in his potty as he had been known to do, but after looking down, I noticed that there was a log sitting outside the plastic pot. A slightly squished brown log.

With a crying child clinging to my neck who happened to have smeared poop on his foot, while still having it smeared on his bottom where it had exited, I was unable to bend down to clean up the little pile on the floor. It was then that one of the most disgusting things happened. Since I already gave it away with my tweet, you can deduce that the dog came running in and without hesitation…not even sniffing the pile…ate it. It was like black lightning came through the room and in a flash it was gone. Furry little thing and brown pile…gone. Our dog ate lil’ man’s poop!

So all in a quick couple minutes, I probably set potty training back with my outburst after seeing the brown trail following behind the little guy, watched my dog eat the little pile of poop, cleaned the lil’ man up (both foot and rear) and noticed that somehow there was a large brown smear down my sleeve. Seriously? How did that get there? Ugh! So gross!

I’m not sure if I’m ready for this whole potty training thing. And no more privacy for the lil’ man. He will be doing his business in plain sight from now on so we make sure he hits his target.