Michael Bentine’s Potty Time...

...has nothing on this.

Here in the Blake household it is potty training time. In earnest. After a couple of false starts we’ve figured that Tom is now ready to make the big jump from pull-up nappies to no-nappy at all.

He understands the concept mentally.

He understands the ploys him mummy and daddy are employing to get him to do his business in the potty. These basically revolve around bribery – both material and emotional.

We’re also employing a variant off the Pavlov technique. Each time there is a little golden shower on the carpet we sit him straight down onto his potty to establish the link.

Tom understands all this.

But he ain’t going for it.

“No potty,” is his answer. This is sometimes followed by the potty being forcibly ejected into another room.

This plainly is the wall that we have to break through.

The wees aren’t too bad. Kiddy wees aren’t horrible like grown-up wees (unless of course that’s just the parent in me talking). They’re easy to mop up. Not nice. But easy.

It’s the poos that are causing us headaches.

Tom’s always been a private pooer. To the point where he’ll completely remove himself from company, often by shutting himself in another room or the hallway where he can pass his motions without audience participation. I kind of feel the same about my poos so I know where he is coming from.

However, this makes throwing the potty under him when a log is about to fall extremely difficult because as soon as he spies our approach the bomb bay doors lock tighter than the Coalition Government’s budget. Arrested development. Not a dicky-bird. Just the high pitched whistle of foiled expectation.

Most kids have a problem with control. Holding it back. Not Tom. He can hold it in for a phenomenal amount of time. His problem is letting go. Saturday he refused to poo at all and Sunday looked to be going the same way. As Tom is prone to a touch of constipation if his cycle is broken we gave him a quick shot of lactulose; he finds constipation very distressing so we don’t want to colour his perception of potty training with that kind of experience.

So Sunday afternoon amid much foul smelling wind we knew our little boy (to continue with the bomb analogy) was about to drop his Little Boy. There is only so much “watching like a hawk” that you can do. Somehow he managed to sneak off, shut himself in the kitchen and, just as daddy valiantly arrived with the eager potty, dropped a brick of humungous proportions onto the welcome mat in the kitchen.

I felt like whistling the them tune from The Great Escape.

*Sigh*

Missed it again. So we put it in the potty. Sat Tom on the potty. And then we all trooped upstairs to give Mr Brick an honourable send-off (discharge?) down the toilet.

It blocked the toilet.

I’m not kidding.

It backed up. Right to the rim.

Great, I thought. Now we’re going to have to call out an emergency plumber (and you all know how I feel about calling plumbers).

But as it was the internet came to my aid. A fantastic site called www.howtomendit.com. On a forum for blocked toilets – yes, really – it recommended tying a bin bag around a mop and using it as a plunger.

Well blow me if the thing didn’t work a treat. Torpedo away. All clear in the tubes. And Tom was feeling pretty lithe too.

So. This is how we are spending our Bank Holiday weekend. We are re-enacting the blitz. There’s been no direct hits at present but the payload is all ready to be loosed.

I’ll keep you posted. I know you want to know.


P.S. News just in. Direct hit on Pottyville with a large incendiary device at 10.30 hours approximately. Street party about to commence.