Umm…that would be me, not my 2 year old. I was fully expecting to get at least six more months before I had to start seriously considering the reality of potty training again. After all, EVERYONE says boys take longer to learn to use the toilet than girls. And my girl was perilously close to 3 before she was trained (not that I think that it’s bad that it took that long or that there’s anything seriously wrong if a child isn’t trained by 3, but you know how “those people” are). 

So there I was, just minding my own business, when my barely 2 year old started asking to go “PODDY”??  The first couple of times I thought it was just a curiousity thing and once he’d tried it he’d be content to leave it alone for a good long while. Turns out, it’s not a passing phase. He wants to sit on the potty multiple times a day and he has been successfully making “deposits” anywhere from 1-3 times a day. Without any prompting.  

Would I be the world’s most annoying person if I said I really wasn’t that happy about this situation? Because really, I KNOW that most parents would be THRILLED that their kids were taking an active interest in toilet training and would jump on this bandwagon with all the hysterical enthusiasm of the “Breast is Best” fanatics. (Don’t send hate mail – I breastfed my kids, I support breastfeeding. I’m just not an evangelist.). 

The truth is, potty training means more work LONG BEFORE it means less work.  It means being hyper-aware of your child’s habits, asking frequently if they have to use the toilet, helping them remove clothes and sitting with them while they “contemplate the deeper meaning of life”. It means copious candy rewards and praise. Not that these things are all bad. They are mostly necessary and really, I’m proud that my son is ready to take this next step in his development.  I’m just fundamentally lazy not excited about the work involved.

I’m not prepared for full blown potty training boot camp with the underwear and the staying at home and the sitting on (or beside) the potty all the live-long day.  We are in a small apartment which I try to leave daily, lest I lose my ever-loving mind get stir-crazy. My toilet-training potty is in a storage container in Ontario and I’m too cheap to buy another one for the one month until we get our stuff back.  And mostly I’m just not ready to take on the boot camp method I used on my first child which involved no more diapers and staying close to home with plenty of changes of clothes.  We don’t even have that many changes of clothes right now (and not because I haven’t been doing laundry!).

So we’re calling it “Half-Assed Potty Training” “Child-led Potty Training” and just letting Kieran tell us when he wants to sit on the potty.  I won’t say no to him if he wants to do it. Just don’t expect me to bring up the subject!  Until we get tired of this in-between stage and buckle down and do this thing, you can just call me The Reluctant Potty-Trainer.