potty training: a fiasco

For the past year I have spent my Wednesday evenings babysitting a cherubic little munchkin called Sabine. I met her mom at Kid O and immediately fell for this little girl—she’s just so darn cute, ask anybody. She’s the funniest kid—a little neurotic actually. She likes her toys to be neat and organized, and she gets stressed out about playdates with a certain little girl, to the point where she begs her mom to hide her favorite toys the night before the scheduled visit. (‘Hide baby flopsy, hide big flopsies, hide pink highchair…’)

Anyway, last week Sabine’s mom informed me that she had successfully potty-trained the tot. I was surprised by how quickly this happened, but excited at the prospect of not changing another poopy diaper. I was instructed to ask Sabine if she needed to ‘wee’ every 20 minutes or so in hopes of avoiding an accident.

So, I asked the ‘do you have to wee?’ question every 10 minutes, give or take, until I could tell she was getting annoyed with my persistence. Then as I stood stirring her pasta dinner, little Sabine appeared beside me, looked up and proclaimed, ‘I weed.’ I looked down and saw that since she was wearing a dress, the ‘wee’ had not only soaked her. No, she had gone, apparently beginning in her bedroom (I later learned from following the trail) and then came to find me, all the while still going. I changed her, found some cleaning supplies and wiped up the floor, from the kitchen, through the living room around the corner and into her bedroom.

I figured I was in the clear by this point. After dinner and bathtime, we were working on a giant floor sized jigsaw puzzle and Sabine had tons of energy. She was standing in front of me, jumping up and down with a big smile on her face. Suddenly she stopped and looked me dead in the eye. ‘I poo-ed in my underpants,’ she said. Shocked and trying to figure out how I missed that this was happening right before my eyes, I picked her up, held her at arms length, and rushed her to the bathroom. At first glance it seemed to be a false alarm. At second glance, we had poo on the floor, but then poo on the potty! It was exciting. Until she stood up and decided she had to wee. It went like this:

Her: I have to wee.
Me: Ok, just sit back down on the potty and go ahead.
Her: But there’s poo in it!
Me: It’s ok, poo and wee can go together!
Her: No.
Me: (audible sigh. Remove poo from potty with toilet paper.)
Her: (looking into now empty potty) It’s dirty.
Me: I will clean it after you wee. (really!?)
Her: (clearly not pleased with the arrangement, sits back down and goes wee.)

Conclusion: Sabine is evidently not potty trained.

Winner: Fantastik and paper towels
Loser: clearly, me.
Auxiliary winner: baby flopsy, because he was there throughout the whole ordeal for moral support.