It's My Potty and I'll Cry If I Want To

Potty training...it's on my mind.

I'm currently checking my third trainee off the list. Only one more to go.

One would think with all this knowledge and application I could write a How To book. I'd call it "Potty Talk" or "Potty Words, and Other Things You're Allowed to Say While Training". But those who have trained more than one have acquired wisdom with all that potty knowledge and learned quickly that the munchkins don't all follow the same checklist of How To.

So today I'm only passing along one tip. The motivation of this tip takes us all the way back to my first born.

She was quick to learn. She was the one that we basically had "the talk" and she said, "okay", and wah-lah. Except for one flaw...public bathrooms.

Yuck!

When you have a potty training child, you usually have a child that is enamored with the toilet. It's their own little love affair. For two years, they have been shooed away from that giant water beast. And now, they have been given permission to touch. And touch they do. For that reason, my toilets are usually their cleanest during potty training season. And then we venture into public. I have no control over those toilets. And what usually seems like the greatest invention in the world, can become a parent's worst nightmare...the automatic flusher.

The first time we visited a public restroom with the automated system, the flushing butler decided it was time to clean up as we placed her tooshy on the seat. She jumped sky high and refused to sit back down. She was so terrified by the strength and noise of the flushing water that it took years to get her to go to the bathroom at the mall. It seemed she could hold back more liquid than the Hoover Dam. She was a wonder.

Enter: Post-It notes

I now keep a pad of sticky Post-It notes in my diaper bag and purse. Simply taking one off and putting it over the sensor solves our problem. No more worries about abrupt courtesy flushes. When we're done, I simply place it in the handy little "trash can" in the stall.

This can also be used for anyone who has ever had the pleasure of covering your toilet seat just right and then as you're inches from sitting down, the toilet flushes on you taking your dainty protection with it. You then have to quickly stand back up and start all over again, only to race against the flush again. Never happened to you? Me neither.