Hop aboard the potty train

I should be an expert potty trainer by now, but it's not any easier.

My best-behaved child, well into his 3s, has no interest in being potty-trained. I remind him daily that firefighters don't wear diapers. Bob the Builder doesn't wear diapers. He agrees with me wholeheartedly. But sit on the potty he will not.

We've tried. Buzzy Bumblebee the finger puppet told him elaborate stories while he sat on the potty. A sticker chart adorned the wall. Fun books and treats made appearances. I-who-will-not-buy-my-children-toys-on-demand took my son down the toy aisle asking him what he'd like to earn for wearing big-boy underwear.

It was in the middle of a THREE-HOUR bathroom session, as I had Mr. Toilet singing an aria with his lid going up and down, that it hit me: What am I doing? I'm a respectable mother, college graduate, with a million other tasks wallowing on my to-do list, and I'm kowtowing to a 3-year-old — begging really — for him to go just once, in the toilet. Have I lost all sense of decency?

Really, truly, it's a logistical thing. My son can dress himself, put on his own shoes, unbuckle his car seat, get drinks of water and wash his own hands. He insists he is a big boy. And he is. He's reaching maximum capacity for Pampers. A few more pounds and we might have to go to the adult-sized diapers. Every time I take him to a public restroom for a diaper change, his head and feet hang off the ends of the pull-down diaper changer. I fear the entire thing will buckle under his big-boy weight. This can't go on much longer.

There's that fear that runs through every mother's head: that her child will be the only one sent off to junior high still wearing Huggies. But am I pushing him too early? I read in one of those all-knowing parenting magazines the other day that a child is ready to be potty-trained when they come and ask for a diaper change. If I had a penny for every time my kids did that, I wouldn't have a single cent. All three were content to wallow in their own mire for hours. (And even now, the potty-trained ones do a full-on break dance before running to the bathroom.)

I know the day will come when this won't loom so large, just like I look back at other phases — the biting, the screaming, the getting-up-five-times-in-the-night — and think, Why did I fret so much? This, too, shall pass. But here and now, with costs rising and diapers not getting any cheaper, with another baby coming in just a few weeks, one more diaper independence would be nice.

At church on Sunday I spied my son sitting in the hallway with his teacher. The rest of the Sunbeam class was taking a potty break, and he sat contentedly against the wall with his diaper peeking out of his khakis.

\"Preston, pretty soon you will be going into the bathroom with all the other kids and sitting on the potty!\" I whispered to him enthusiastically.

He just smiled coyly, with the kind of look in his eyes that said, \"Yeah, right, Mom! Like a turtle who carries his house around, I've got convenience strapped right to me. Why have it any other way?\"