There's Always Tomorrow...

John Michael seems to have waged philosophical war on the Potty Training process. I know he knows how to do it. He has all the signs and wonders - dry at night, tells me when he poos, can control his bladder, shoot he's even changed his own diaper. He began to tell us in the evening "I will use the potty tomorrow!" The next morning we would wake up and announce "John you said you would use the potty today!" He would get a glint in his eye and a smile on his face and say, "No, I said I would use the potty tomorrow. This is today." So yesterday's tomorrow is always today and never actually tomorrow...and he knew it all along! Stinker.

The other day I took off his jammies and put him in underpants under great screamings, whinings and protestations. "I don't care! Scream all you want! You are going to use the potty!" A couple of hours later he came to me and said that he was cold. I knew what that meant. I've walked through grocery aisles before with the chills while trying to cross my legs, push a cart and select the right grade carrots all at the same time. I didn't give in...Two hours after that he began to scream and cry. He'd been holding it for so long that his belly was sore. I got him to sit on the potty, then I got him to stand in front of the potty, then I got him to sit on the training potty but nothing could get him to stop screaming, relax and let loose. We read books, chatted, paraded the Philip Movie Lines show in front of him but all to no avail. Finally I pulled him off the potty and put a diaper on him when I began to seriously fear for the health of his bladder. John Michael curled up on the sofa, stopped screaming, fell asleep and managed to...relax.... Oh well, there's Always Tomorrow....