Chelsea Kaplan’s Musings About Life... After Birth

My son has recently become obsessed with sticking his hand in the toilet. His most favorite thing in the world to do is to zoom into the bathroom, lean over the seat and stick his entire arm in the bowl and swish it around in the water. Awesome, right?

When my husband and I see this happening, we run after him and scream “No!!!”. After doing so, we yank him away from the toilet and then furiously wash his hands, all while he giggles maniacally. We try to keep the bathroom doors closed, but he’s nearly figured out how to open them. We got those toilet lock things, but they broke. We just installed new ones, so hopefully they’ll last, but I think in the battle of the toilet lock vs. the Kaplan toddler, the toilet lock is Sanjaya Malakar and the Kaplan toddler is Melinda Doolittle; the lock, though borderline offensive in its ridiculousness, is an option worth entertaining, but we all know it will never quite go the distance against its far superior competition.

My husband recently began saying “No! Yucky!” when our son goes for the toilet. The kid has come to hear this phrase so often that he now associates the word “No!” with “Yucky!” He’ll throw his leftover cheerios to the ground after eating and when we go “No!”, he goes “No! No! Yucky!”  Banging on Mommy’s laptop also gets a “No!”, which is always followed by him saying “No! No! Yucky!” Today I asked him if he wanted some raisins, his favorite snack. He replied, “No yucky! Toilet yucky!”

My pediatrician recently informed me and my husband that because our son is 18 months old, we should start introducing him to the idea of the toilet because potty training time’s around the corner. “Oh, he knows all about the toilet,” I said. She thought this was great and advised us to refrain from using negative words like “yucky” to describe the toilet so that he associates it with positive notions.

Guess we’ll be changing his diapers well through middle school.