If A Boy Goes In The Woods, Does It Still Count As Potty Training?

I once received this morsel of parenting advice from an acquaintance who potty trained her child before 2:

"You can potty train them young, and put up with accidents all over your house, or you can wait until their older, and deal with diapers longer".

To me, this was a no-brainer: you mean I can either have a pee-soaked couch or not?

So, yeah, none of my kids were out of diapers more than a couple of months before their 3rd birthday. My oldest went from diapers, to Pull-Ups, to nothing, day and night, within a couple of weeks.

My middle was a bit more of a challenge because she has "I don't have to pee" syndrome which makes a child wait until the moment of no return. Even now, at six, I have to tell her to go to the bathroom when I see her doing a sort of spastic Irish jig.

Then I got ready to potty train my last child, my son.

Oy.

We skipped past his 2nd birthday and watched the 3rd pass us by with absolutely no interest in potty training. It didn't matter if he were in diapers, pull-ups or au naturel, there was no "oops!" reaction if he went in his pants. And so I put cotton balls in my ears when my mom came over, ignored questions of "how OLD is he?" when changing his diaper in public, and prayed to the potty gods that he'd decide to get out of diapers before he started growing hair on his chin.

I was calm until we reached the summer before his fourth birthday in mid-September. FOUR was looming (as was a Disney World trip), and I was starting to sweat.

My mother, my poor mother, tried everything with him too. She just couldn't believe he didn't want to get out of diapers. But, my son has a stubborn streak in him a mile wide and wasn't going to budge.

So, she proposed he do the one thing all men seem to love to do: pee outside.

"Come and water my flowers!", she'd say cheerfully when we came to visit, totally ignoring the fact that this was completely out of character for her.

But, he did it! He LOVED peeing outside. Back at my house, he'd jump up and say, "I PEE OUTSIDE!" and I'd open the door and watch him run to the back of our yard, the thankfully wooded and private part of our property. My only concern was that if he didn't start using indoor plumbing soon, he was in for one tough winter.

Then one day, as he walked back from his potty session, I noticed something different. His shorts were in his hand. His gait looked. . .uncomfortable, as if he was dirty. I knew what he had done and ran to get the baby wipes.

While I cleaned him off, I explained that while it was ok for little boys to pee in the woods, it was definitely not easy or clean to do the other. He understood and never tried that again.

That experience also left him with about 25 mosquito bites along his bum and legs, further solidifying in his head that he would NEVER try that again.

About two weeks after that, he decided that indoor plumbing was a nice invention and never looked back.

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This post was written as part of a blog blast for Parent Bloggers Network to introduce Pull-Ups' Potty Project, a series of webisodes following the real life potty training adventures of six families. Fortunately for you, I am pretty certain that not one of these families is using the "go pee on my flowers" method of potty training.

Five PBN bloggers who participate in this blog blast will be chosen at random to win a Flip Video Camera.