Disclaimer: Bathroom Post Ahead! Don Your Gas Masks!

My first son made the art of potty training seem like a breeze, and a pleasant one at that. I felt guilty sharing his exploits with other mothers when I heard them moaning about how long it was taking for their son or daughter. Of course, I understood how lucky I was. I even understood that his training had fairly little to do with me (although we did allow him to watch and verbally walked through the steps pretty much from the time he was born). He began walking at 9 months and at 10 months would bring us a diaper when he was dirty. Of course, we were blown away by this and attributed it to his natural "genius." (No, he is not a member of Mensa!)

At one and a half, he was standing naked in the hallway, when my husband recognized the familiar stance. He yelled. I ran to get the bucket. From that point on, he never went pee-pee in a diaper again. He would ask for a diaper when he needed to do the other business and would head off to his room to lean over his toy box. If I came to check before he was finished, he would say, "Go 'way, Mommy!"

At two and a half, he caught a parasite called "Giardia." In the throes of Giardia's deadly terror, he begged for a diaper and I simply told him we hadn't time and plunked him up on the toilet. From that point on, he never wanted a diaper on. He only wet the bed one time, on a night when he was extremely exhausted. Thus, we never tried pull-ups. We never offered rewards. We never agonized over a minute of it.

Enter son #2. He will be four years old at the end of this month. He is one of the brightest toddlers I know (who knows, maybe he is Mensa material?). But the boy would not potty train! Plus, he has always seemed to save the majority of his business for night time. Even when he was much littler, I found I had to purchase special extra-absorbent diapers for the nights. I couldn't count the number of times he played the "I can't go to bed 'cause I've got to poop" card (otherwise known as the "Get-Out-Of-Bed Free Card"). The whole business of potty training has seemed like an endless power play with this child.

Unfortunately, it has also been laced with some parental anxiety because he has been fraught with constipation ever since we began this battle. A few sympathetic parents encouraged me by sharing that their son also was a late trainer with constipation issues. Some suggested that the constipation might go away once he is completely trained.

Viewing the fourth birthday on the horizon, I couldn't bear the thought of buying another package of size six diapers. So, I explained to him that when this package was used up, I would no longer buy diapers for him. He could either go in his pants or go on the toilet (to which he would always reply, "Mommy, I'll go on the potty when I'm as big as B------ [his older brother, who is 12]! )

No-D-Day (No Diaper Day) came last night. I sat him on the potty and informed him that as soon as I heard a plop, no matter how small, he would get a tattoo and we would have to talk about what he wanted as a "poopy toy." We had given him a small Spiderman figure to play with for ten minutes each time he successfully went pee-pee and he called it his "potty guy."

He produced the smallest plop imaginable and I pretended it was the most impressive thing he had ever done. He chose a frog tattoo and had to run show every member of the family. He asked me to buy him a snake for his "poopy toy."

So, this morning, after dropping both little boys off at pre-school/PDO, I headed off in search of a snake. Not a live one, mind you, but one he would relish playing with for 10 minutes after each success. I found three rubber snakes at Dollar Tree. (His favorite book right now is I Need a Snake, by Lynne Jonell, about a boy who asks his mother for a pet snake, but ends up creating three pretend snakes.)

As soon as he was ready for bed, he felt nature's call. It was, once again, the paltriest effort I've ever seen, but it provided the requisite sound. He selected a goldfish tattoo, in honor of Scooby Doo, who died this afternoon of unknown causes. I then produced the "poopy toy(s)." MS was jubilant. He danced with them. He pretended they were squeezing his arms off. He whipped them in the air (this could be trouble). His mantra for the entire ten minutes was "I love pooping in the toilet, 'cause I love my poopy toy!"



As the timer dinged, signalling the end of his allotted toy time, he handed the three snakes back and I told him to head to bed. I knew full well this would be a late night (good thing he gets a nap on school days). Sure enough, nature called again, two more times before he headed to bed (plus I counted at least 5 potty trips before he fell asleep). What did we feed that boy for dinner???

Thankfully, the second and third efforts were of worthy size for the prize! Still, I began to be a tiny bit fearful of just how much he had stored up inside. Thus, after the final success, he was told it was too late in the evening for play time and promised his ten minutes with the snakes tomorrow morning (once he has success for a week, he gets the toy indefinitely). I'm guessing he'll dream of snakes tonight. Moreover, I have a feeling we're going to have a pretty crappy day tomorrow!