WARNING: This blog entry may not be appropriate for those who do not have a close relationship to their body or its processes.

Potty training. What an interesting experience. I don’t really like the word “training” when our kids are involved—it’s so…animal. So let’s say Keana’s been progressing towards not using a diaper for the last couple months. If you look back in the blog you’ll see we bought the little toilet a long time ago and had immediate success which then quickly faded. Being the good parents we are, we didn’t push the issue because the last thing we need is a shit crisis that scars Keana for life. So for the last six weeks Keana’s really been using the toilet exclusively during the day. We still use a diaper at night and there was an interesting development last night. At 4 a.m. Keana woke up screaming, so I ran downstairs to see what was going on. When I got there I said, “What’s wrong baby?” Keana replied, “I have to pee!” and I said, “Well, you have your diaper on.” and she said, “But if I pee in there it will be full.” She had a good point and all of sudden I realized I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to be waking up in the middle of the night for this.

Then of course there’s perspective. One time Keana looked at her product and said, “Hey! It looks like ice cream!” and at the end, after a few additions, she exclaimed, ” And that’s a caterpillar crawling over the ice cream!” I took a look and had to laugh. It was very clear, a lovely mocha caterpillar crawling over some dark chocolate.

Another interesting development has been pooping at bedtime, just in time (of course) to delay actually going to bed. At first we thought it may just be a realization of power on Keana’s part to stay up later, but what are you gonna do? The girl has to poop. Very intricate the learning and teaching of the elimination process.

Potty training isn’t all stress and frustration either. There is also a hilarious side of potty training. Let me just say that I’m not sure we will ever fully understand a child’s relationship to their excrement. Towards the end of using diapers Keana was very interested in what was in the diaper. I would show her and explain why we put it in the toilet, where it goes when we flush, etc. One morning as I did this, she exclaimed, “Good bye poopy! Have a great day with your friends! Don’t forget to eat breakfast with them!”

Clearly this is a very deep, complex, multi-faceted issue and Keana seems to be handling it with aplomb (and humor).