Something I Never Thought I'd Do Before Becoming a Parent, Example #1,516,859

Tory removed his diaper tonight. I watched him do this, and allowed him to run about his bedroom naked. Mommy and I were busy cleaning his room and bath time was near, so decided to save time by not attaching a diaper that one of us would probably remove in a few minutes anyway.

I was betting that he had enough control to hold his plumbing until bath time. In a stunning display of why I don’t gamble, Tory pooped in the middle of the floor a couple minutes later. Fortunately, it was one of those hard, well-formed poos that I could easily pick off the floor. I fetched a baby wipe, picked up the poo, and started for the diaper pail when mommy stopped me.

“No, don’t throw it away,” she said. “Drop it in the toilet.”

I knew her reason. The kids need to know the potty’s purpose if they’re ever going to be potty trained, and showing them their poo in the potty could help convince them to drop their poo directly in the potty.

I dutifully dropped it in the toilet in full view of all the children. They stared at it before fighting over the right to flush the toilet. Without stopping to contemplate if the lesson sunk in, I threw the kids in the tub and started their bath. It was easy to get them ready for the bath since Tory was still naked, and Abbie had joined him in nudity by this point.