I’ve decided that both of my kids inherited the recessive gene for potty-training, or perhaps I’m just really, really bad at it.

A few weeks ago, the girl’s Montessori teacher informed us in no uncertain terms that “She is ready for potty-training.  If we miss the window it will be too late.” Read that to yourself in a severe Eastern European accent and you’ll understand why we couldn’t say no.

We went and bought a few packs of training underwear.  We  had a training seat and potty at home and had, up until this point, treated them like bathroom decor.

On Monday, she went to school for the first time in underwear and we sent the extra pairs with her. She returned with a two pounds of wet underwear and clothing and wearing some other kid’s training pants.

We went out and bought more training underwear.  She seemed to prefer the potty seat, so I bought another one so that we wouldn’t have to cart the one up and down the stairs a million times a day.  The new one has Elmo on it, and she refuses to use the old, plain one.  We now cart the Elmo seat up and down the stairs a million times a day.

The week went by and she did a bit better, but the laundry load was getting to be unbearable.  I was about to give up. I tried to mention it to her teacher, who looked at me with widened eyes and said forcefully, “There’s no going back now.”

The next week she started to use the toilet a bit more, and was dry as long as you remembered to put her on the toilet.  I felt heartened.

Every single one of my friends with a 2-ish year old proudly exclaimed, “He/She is potty trained!!” Some online, some in real life.  Some even said things like, “She was just dry all the time in her pull-up so I put her in underwear and she’s even dry at night!” I was jealous.

Then all of a sudden, she suddenly has realized that I want her to use the potty, and therefore she no longer has any interest in it. Just this morning, I tried to get her to sit on the potty seat about 3 times in an hour.  She refused every single time, and eventually just peed on the floor.

Sigh.  Who needs to be toilet trained, anyway? Don’t they now make diapers in adult sizes?