Whose Idea Was This?

Potty Training.

It's really a funnier topic than we think.

Who thought up the idea of that little plastic miniature toilet-thing that is designed to sit in your bathroom to entice your child to defecate into it?

At the beginning of our potty training experience we purchased one of those fabricated devices because it seemed as if that was the choice everyone should make. We didn't think through the purchase thoroughly, I guess. We set it up in the bathroom and London did what we asked - she deposited her poop and pee inside the plastic enclosure.

And that's when it dawned on me.

So now what? There is no flushing handle on that thing, you know. Hmmm. So this meant that I had to pick up the plastic bowl and try to scrape or dump or shake or otherwise transfer the excrement and urine into another bowl. Gross. And it isn't as if the exchange was neat and tidy. It doesn't slide well. And then you can't just leave the scrapings and residue inside the plastic fake toilet. You have to clean that out too?? But where? In the too small, shell-shaped bathroom sink? In the bathtub? In the kitchen sink?

That was the first and the last time we used the miniature toilet. It just seemed like more work than simply teaching our children to sit carefully on the regular toilet, where the magic handle takes care of every little problem that proceeds from the bum. And I don't have to deal so directly with solid and liquid waste. I've done enough of that already.