Rock On!

“You need to go potty? Yay, let’s go potty!”

Justin is my grand-nephew (I think that’s it) – my sister’s grandchild. He’s interested in and reasonably co-operative with the potty venture, but what he lacks is Staying Power.

“Potty!” he’ll yodel, and plonk his butt down. Six wriggly seconds later, he’s up again. There’s no convincing him that he needs to sit still and reeelaaaax in order for anything to happen.

He sits, he pops up, he looks in.

“No in potty!”

“Well, no, hon. You have to wait a little. You have to give it time to come out.” My sister is encouraging and patient.

He sits, he pops up, he looks in. She’s encouraging and patient and completely ineffective. What to do?

“Let’s read a book, Justy.”

“Okay!” Justy hauls up his britches and heads for the couch. What? You want me to sit there and read? Everyone knows you read while snuggled on the couch or in bed. You do NOT read with your bare butt hanging over a hole!

My sister bemoans this over the phone. “There’s no point in using candies. It’ll take him three seconds to eat a Smartie, and then he’ll be up again. If he knows there’s a Smartie possibility, he can’t sit still, so I can’t even use it to brib – er, motivate.”

Two days later, Justin’s teenage aunt, who had received an iPod for Christmas, comes giggling into the kitchen.

“Look, mom!” she giggles. “Justin likes to listen to my music!”

Sure enough, there’s the little man head bopping, hands clapping to music only he can hear. Head bopping, hands clapping, and… sitting down.

Gramma pops across the kitchen, pops out an ear bud.

“You listening to music, baby?”

“Yeah! Singin’!”

“You want to listen to more music?”

“Yeah! Singin’!”

“Well. Tell you what. Whenever you want to sit on the potty, you can listen to music!!”

“So that’s that.” My sister chortles over the phone. “Now he’ll sit for as long as it takes, as long as he can have the iPod. Rock on, Potty Boy!”

Some days, parenting can be a breeze: you just have to keep your eyes open to the possibilities.

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© 2006, Mary P