Yes, my kid is a genius. And so is yours.

All four of my kids have potty trained before they graduated to the two-year-old nursery at church.  At some point with each of them, I've dropped them off at the "walker" nursery with instructions to take them potty.  And it never fails to amaze the nursery workers that they actually succeed.

 I get a lot of How do you do it? My kid is three and still not trained.


Well, the first question I would ask is, have you tried?  Gently, maybe you're not giving your kid enough credit.  Or maybe you're not giving yourself enough credit.  If your kid is developmentally normal and you want to train them, you can train them.  And they can be trained.

Also, they can learn to read before age 2.  Just kidding.

Although our foremothers trained all of us early, my children's unusualness is not surprising in light of modern advice on the subject.

Consider the following unhelpful tidbits from Babycenter:

"Some children aren't interested in potty training until they're closer to 3, or even 4."

Here is a truncated list of some other things my toddlers aren't interested in:  wiping their nose, putting their toys away, staying in their beds, not whacking people with blocks, sitting still when required, staying away from the hot stove, or eating only clean food.

Here's a little secret:  parenting, by definition, is many years of making your kid do stuff they don't want to do.  Not interested in pooping anywhere other than your pants?  Tough.

"Before 12 months of age, children can't control their bladder or bowel movements."

This is patently untrue.  I practiced infant potty training with my second child, because I'm just that weird, and had her going in the potty on cue at 2 months of age.  Anyone who claims that babies have no control has never travelled to the many places around the world where diaperless babies are the norm and, for the most part, do not soil themselves.

From the completely ridiculous, horrendously misleading, utterly irrelevant, yet potty-gospel list of "readiness signs":

"[The child] is coordinated enough to walk, and even run, steadily."

Might I suggest that the ability to run is not only not necessary to peeing in the potty, but also rather unsuited to the patience required to sit still for 30 seconds?

Who says a child needs to be able to walk himself to the potty in order to use it?  Do you wait for a child to walk to the kitchen before you feed him?

My first child, who was trained at 17 months, had early success precisely because he couldn't walk.  It's a lot easier to keep a kid sitting when they can't physically walk (or run!) away.

"[The child] can pull his pants up and down."

Again, completely irrelevant.  I'm not talking about a potty-trained child meaning one who is completely independent and ready to go off to college.  I'm talking about a child who does not need diapers, but will, with help, use a toilet for their needs.

"[The child] isn't resistant to learning to use the toilet [and] is in a generally cooperative stage, not a negative or contrary one."

Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Good one, potty experts!  Toddlers are totally known for their cooperative spirit and their lack of negativity, contrariness and resistance to all things reasonable.  

Here's secret #2:  If you're waiting for your toddler to become charming, cooperative, and eager to follow all your instructions, well... there's yer trouble.

If you want to potty train, you're going to have to assume some authoritative leadership.  Please don't wait for your toddler to come up with the idea on their own and then wonder why it's not happening.  Note this is different from the parent not being ready to potty train, which can be the case for all manner of legitimate reasons.

(One of those legitimate reasons would be the desire for the training process to take as little time as possible.  I can't speak to that, since mine all trained about the same age.  Though there is concern about the difficulty of unlearning ingrained habits; in theory, I think, the younger you start, the longer the training will take.)  

Now, if you want to wait until your child is older to potty train, by all means, please do so.  I am addressing merely those who, over the years, have expressed amazement with a little wistful sadness. 

Maybe sometime I'll write a Part Two for this post with more specific how-to's.  

But today, hear me, wistfully sad parents!  Most everything you've heard about potty training is a bunch of hooey!  Your child will not be psychologically damaged by making them sit on the potty against their mighty toddler will!  

Here's secret #3:  poop is gross, whether on the floor, on furniture, smeared into every crevice in your kid's hinder parts, or (slightly less so) in the toilet.  Having a child means you have to deal with poop.  It's unavoidable.  It's disgusting.  It happens daily.  And potty training means you'll have to deal with it in new, myriad, and unexpected ways.  Which leads us to

Secret #4:  potty training requires commitment.  Like, to the asylum.  Just kidding! (mostly)

Please, Other Parents, think not when I show up with my adorable little genius and clean fingernails at church that he's a prodigy who trained himself without me ever dealing with accidents.  I could tell you stories that would make your hair curl.  

This is not a picture of my child sitting on an enormous potty, although after writing all this, that's all I see.  Obviously, it's Jeddy doing his math paper on top of the Bobcat sitting in our driveway.

Also please note that I am talking about daytime, awake potty training--although I do have one kid (of four) who was dry through the night before age 2.  

I am willing to sacrifice my mythical status as the potty whisperer if only to free other parents from the tyranny of elusive "readiness signs" and fear of apocalyptic psychological damage.  My kids may be geniuses (naturally), but they're not as unique as you think they are.

When Parseltongue would come in handy

A few days ago we finished school and Jeddy headed outside to play.  I went into my room to put sneakers on for a walk, when Jeddy tore in, breathless and white as a sheet.


Guess how fast he can move when he inadvertently steps on a coiled-up black snake just outside the garage door?


I asked how big it was and he said, "I didn't stop to measure it!!"  He did indicate that it was a couple inches thick.


The man of the house being at work, it fell to me to display no fear and protect my family from venomous monsters.


Jed didn't know if the snake continued his sunbathing after their encounter or headed into the grass or into the garage.  So as I cracked open the garage door to peek through, I felt something like this:

Though Google assures me that there are no dangerous black snakes around here, I had two small children sleeping on the floor in the next basement room, and I could just see the thing slithering in at top speed to attack them.


Plus, what if it was hiding around the corner, and when I jerked the door open, it jumped out like this: "Raaaah!"

No such attack occurred, however, even as I gingerly checked under the car and all around the garage, armed with a plastic snow shovel and possibly prepared to use deadly force.

The snake seemed to have vanished entirely, and I might have thought Jeddy made the whole thing up, except I swear even his hair had turned white.  

The incident ended with a motherly suggestion not to play hide and seek in the bushes next to the garage.

The plague is upon us

Last evening at a potluck I started feeling achy and woozy, so we came home and I went straight to bed.  After sleeping 9 or 10 hours I still felt like I couldn't get out of bed, so Jason's home taking a sick day for me.


My symptoms are vague; mostly feeling wiped out and achy.  My head aches and my neck glands are swollen.


Wondering what's going on, I naturally turned to WebMD, that paragon of helpful medical information.  After inputting my symptoms and answering a bunch of very specific questions about them, WebMD gave me a personalized list of a mere 99 conditions from which I may be suffering.  As always, if you think you have a medical emergency, dial 911 immediately.


My symptoms may be caused by:  nearsightedness, meningitis, multiple sclerosis, caffeine withdrawal, carbon monoxide poisoning, chronic kidney disease, mumps, stroke, sunburn, bipolar disorder, brain aneurysm, breast cancer, cocaine withdrawal, lead poisoning, lung cancer, plague (I'm not making this up), brain infection, cyanide poisoning, ricin poisoning, or a brain tumor.


I thought I needed to stay in bed and drink apple juice.  Now I'm going to call 911.

Mulch, mud, bruises and bears

Caleb crossed the final frontier today:  he went to church without a diaper on.  I loaded him down with four sets of extra pants in his bag *just in case* but was somewhat surprised to collect him from the nursery wearing the original pants!  The nursery worker said he went for her no problem and "even got most of it in the potty."  Sweet success!

Maybe this experience will help him recover from the trauma of the planned fire drill two weeks ago.  Here he is with his classmates, being wheeled out in an evacuation crib:

I think they definitely could've fit another dozen babies in there, don't you?  The other nursery room also came out with a cribfull so it was a regular baby parade.  I don't think the little ones quite appreciated the adorableness of it, what with the sudden blaring alarms and all.

Being the rebellious and stubbornly contrary homeschooler I am, we school year-round.  We have about a month left for 3rd grade and kindergarten.

Here are the girls playing with math toys.

Sadly for Caleb, he was not invited to participate.

He's better at cars.

"Little Guys Rule."

Indeed.  Here he is at the park, getting ready for a serious ride.





Oh wait, that's not him.  Here he is:

Here's a typical day of frustrating chaos educational lesson with Lizzy scribbling on Jeddy's work, Caleb with his hand down Lizzy's back, Ada trying to make everyone behave, and Jeddy inexplicably distracted from his division problems.





The weather has been great for waiting out Jed's piano lessons at the park.

This park has it all--slides, swings, monkey bars... and mulch.

Look what's growing in the (former) garden!

If this were my childhood, my mother would probably say they're blooming idiots, but we modern moms can't say such politically incorrect things.

The mud pit really adds to our property value, at least in the eyes of the neighborhood kids.  I wonder how the neighbors feel about their kids coming home from our house consistently covered in dirt.  We had one child knock on the door and ask, "Can we play in your sandbox?"

Here's Lizzy this week.  I couldn't get a good picture of Caleb's black eye.

In the space of about four days, Lizzy dove headfirst behind the couch (lump over right eye) and fell onto the metal strip under the front door (left eye); and Caleb got pulled into the coffee table by Lizzy (lump on left side of his head), fell down the stairs again (forehead bruise--thankful not broken neck), fell into the corner of a plastic set of drawers (black eye), and fell off the couch onto the coffee table (lump on right side of the head).


I sure wish I had something to do around here.

Playing with counting bears.  Caleb stuffs them in a tube.

Lizzy sorts them.

And Ada creates a segregated bus.

Oh dear.  

(Wouldn't racism get more ridiculously complicated if we humans came in four distinct colors?  Four water fountains, four bus sections.... Maybe Ada's bus is more along the lines of the caste system: yellow bears are Brahmins, red are warriors, green are farmers, blue are laborers.  I guess the untouchables aren't allowed on the bus.  They'd be the bears that Caleb slobbered on.)

Here's hoping the next post has fewer bruises and prejudiced bears.  

To the bird outside my window at 3:48 a.m.

"He who blesses his friend with a loud voice early in the morning,
It will be reckoned a curse to him."  

-Proverbs 27:14

Lizzy writes a full sentence

She told me this reads, "Lizzy's going to sleep."

Two priceless things

Two priceless things:


Caleb using the potty alone and unprompted,


and Lizzy singing in the tub (paraphrased from Hello Dolly), "I have elegance! I have elegance!"