The time has come for the tiny human to join acceptable society in using the potty. It became apparent that the tiny human was not going to potty train himself, so the Captain and First Mate will have to bravely go where they haven’t gone before. (To the store to buy a potty.) The Captain and First Mate begin this stage by doing some reading. Though the reading makes them feel guilty for waiting until Tiny Human was so old to begin this journey, it also allows them to begin to imagine a future without diapers. Then they look at their other, tinier humans and quickly give up this dream. Finally, along comes the dreaded day.

Day 1: It begins

7:00am: Though the Captain and First Mate have been preparing the tiny human for this change for many weeks, he has been taken by surprise. Rather than comply with the inevitable, he is instead staging a mutiny! This will not stand.

7:45 am: Tiny human is screaming and crying for his diaper. He has peed on the floor, the rug and the side of the potty. He is still crying. We are crying. His twin sisters are crying. The dog has also started crying. So, to sum up: everyone is crying and no one has peed.

8am: The dog is trying to escape from the crying people and is disgusted by all the pee. Yes, the dog, who once ate another dog’s poop without shame, is disgusted.  The Captain is trying to escape too, but keeps being dragged back in by the First Mate.

9:30 am: Success! The Tiny Human has peed in the potty!

10:30: The Tiny Human has peed on his shoes. He is unsure about how to control the flow of pee. The Captain, having no such parts herself, did not think about this problem. Tiny Human likes to check about whether he is done peeing by lifting his penis out to look. Spoiler: he was not done peeing and has now peed in the air.

11 am: Potty 2, Floor 8, Shoes 2. Captain and First Mate are hiding in the kitchen.

12 noon: Eating lunch. Nap time is in sight. The Captain and First Mate are attempting to motivate themselves. Tiny Human is attempting to avoid eating lunch and the even smaller humans are sleeping.

1:00 pm: Tiny Human is sleeping. Captain is cleaning up pee. First Mate is cleaning up pee. The pee smell is everywhere. Why is there so much pee???? Seriously, he is such a small person. There is no way he could generate this much pee on his own, right? How many toddlers are peeing around here?

3pm: Tiny Human wakes up from his nap. It begins again. He is rushed to the nearest potty, where he immediately pees! Success!! This is followed in close succession by peeing in the backyard, the potty again and then his leg.

4 – 7 pm: The Captain and the First Mate try desperately to distract the Tiny Human, and keep him pant-less and dry. Every toy in the house is produced, briefly played with and deemed unsatisfactory. The dog is crying at the door and a brief fight breaks out among the leadership over who gets to escape take the dog outside, where there is fresh air and civilized sewage removal. The toddler somehow becomes camel-like in his bladder control and has yet to produce any pee. He has to be watched non-stop, in case he suddenly decides to go anywhere near the one remaining rug we have in the house. Unfortunately, there are also two smaller humans who require a lot of attention. The First Mate has crept into the kitchen and is attempting to covertly drink wine. The Captain is hiding in the bathroom. The dog can handle this, right? The Captain and First Mate rally, convinced that if they can potty train the dog, they can also do it with a person. I mean, how hard can it be? Literally every parent has done it successfully.

7:01 pm: While the officers were distracted with his sisters, the Tiny Human pees on the rug. The one rug in the house. Literally the only 8 x 10 space in the house that is not easy to clean. The officers mourn the loss of the rug, their dignity and their pride.

8:00pm: Mission accomplished! (Okay, not nearly accomplished, but the day is over, so that’s sweet.) Time for bed. Tiny Human is reunited with his diaper for the evening. The twin humans are sleeping and the dog has given up on all of us.

8:30 pm: The officers fill up a giant mug of wine, sit in their pee-soaked living room and toast to a job only partially completed. Now only many, many days left to go.

Photo on Visual Hunt