Toilets, Toddlers, and Time to Party!

Like you I mark my little passage through life with major milestones (graduations, getting married, the birth of our kids, remembering to get the trash out on the curb BEFORE I hear the truck, . . . etc.) We are approaching one of our grandest milestones as a couple - the last of our children to learn when and how to use indoor plumbing! Potty training is not for the weak spirited. There have been points, usually while I was wiping something off the floor that had no business being there, when it seemed perfectly logical to me to revert to diapers until the kids were in junior high or so.

One of the oddest parts of the process, if you're an outsider, is the fake, and sometimes very real, joy that parents have to show when there has been a successful encounter with the toilet. Today my 2-year-old called me at work to let me know that she was in fact at that moment seated on the toilet taking care of business. (I sincerely encourage you to call your parents next time when you have similar news to share) As Allison described what was happening I gave her multiple positive verbal responses. I was sitting in my cubicle (a word that should be changed) and anyone walking by would have had to stop in their tracks as I loudly said phrases like:

"Yay!"
"Did you do it in the potty?!"
"So your Dora underwear is dry?!"
"You're such a big girl!"
(you get the idea)

It was real, pure, unadulterated joy. So now we sit (or rather Allison sits) on the cusp of life's next great milestone. We won't have to buy diapers again until the Mrs. HTF and I are A LOT older. After 9 years of Huggie Happiness (a good name for a rock band) we will soon see our disposable (pun intended) income increase by thousands of dollars a year. So please cheer us on, and for any of you brave parents still fighting the good fight of teaching this bit of self-sufficiency - it is absolutely worth it, and it'll make their junior high experience just that much better.