No Shit.

Potty training a baby can be an exercise in jackassisms. When we first started potty training V, she would NOT urinate on the toilet, no matter how hard we tried or how ridiculous we sounded. We would say, “V, go tee-tee,” “Ok, go Potty,” “Please, go wee-wee…pee-pee..puddle…” NOTHING translated. Finally, exasperated (she AND us), V announced, “Mama, it’s called “TINKLE!” and then let LOOSE. So tinkle, it was. M pee-pees, and V tinkles…go figure.

For both of them, the number two proved most elusive. It wasn’t like Andrew and I could stand in the bathroom doorway shouting, “Who Does Number Two Work For! You show that turd who’s boss!” I mean, they are babies, after all! M was an easy potty trainer. Two weeks, that was it! V (surprisingly enough) took much longer. I thought girls were supposed to be easier!? I surmise that most of her difficulties stemmed from her insistence on doing everything, “herself,” and doing NOTHING the “baby way.” She NEVER used a “training potty,” never used a “potty seat.” It was the “big girl potty” or BUST. Subsequently, she pooped her pants more times than not.

After (what seemed like an eternity) rockin’ the pull ups and soilin’ the panties, V made the announcement that she didn’t want panties OR pull-ups…she only wanted “pants.” From them on, V went “commando.” My brother’s advice? “You may want to correct that before she goes to high school…and college.” Ha ha…point taken. Just hearing my brother, falsetto in full effect, mock, “I’m not wearing any panties!” was enough for me to nip this one in the bud…FAST.

But tonight, despite all of her funny little insistences (I have NEVER met an “older” two year old…who knows herself, and knows what she wants more than even *I*do), V threw me for a loop. Now, she still requires assistance on the potty. I have to admit…I AM a “Wipe Nazi,” there is nary an ass in this house that isn’t thoroughly inspected after a BM; I’m like Santa…I’m making a list, checkin’ it twice. V still harbors the uninhibitation of a toddler and allows me, nay, requests me in the presence of her PUP (our family word for POOP.) But today, she said something that made, even me, blush.

We have been working with rhyming a lot, mainly because it’s just a fun game the kids and I play, but (like everything in motherhood) this time it bit me in the butt. Fuh real. After V “did her bidness” in the potty this afternoon; full of pomp and pride, my sweet, feminine baby daughter announced with gusto…

“I just did a LITTLE SHITTLE!!!”

I WISH I was makin’ this stuff up…(and NO, that is NOT one of the euphemisms we use. We may tell her that bath time means it’s time to “swim like a mermaid,” and during dinner, I DO still spoon feed her like a “baby bird” or (our latest) a “little kitten” but I PROMISE you, none of our “pet phrases” include profanity!)

And oh, does this now qualify us to be “white trash?” My two year old used the “s” word in context. Just wondering.