Back-to-school in diapers

July 5, 2008 8:57 PM

Kids at school in nappies. Another report claims the average age of toilet-training is now 3 or 4, compared to the former norm of 18 months. Teachers don't want to change diapers; parents say they don't have time to toilet-train. Is our future a continuum of diapers to Depends?
posted by grounded (70 comments total)

my son is 9 years old and still pissing to bed
posted by nonamehifi at 9:02 PM on July 5, 2008 [3 favorites]

Oh no. Another 236 post thread upcoming about incompetent parents and the decline of civilization...with the possibility of some antiquarian Freudian doctrine leaking in...
posted by kozad at 9:04 PM on July 5, 2008

Parents are incompetent, civilization is falling in on itself, and I am so outraged, I just pooped myself. Time to change my nappy.
posted by Saydur at 9:06 PM on July 5, 2008 [6 favorites]

Uhm, doesn't the article say that teachers can't be bothered to take kids to the washroom? That's a big diff from saying they don't want to change diapers.
posted by furtive at 9:07 PM on July 5, 2008

I've heard that toilet training dictates how clean someone keeps themselves later in life. Also, the brand of diapers used dictates political ideology, and the type of toilet training book used has a strong correlation between between people who prefer manual to automatic transmissions in their automobiles.
posted by hellojed at 9:15 PM on July 5, 2008 [4 favorites]

Parents are incompetent, civilization is in decline and I'll be damned if this isn't because of our collective Oedipus complex.
posted by Avenger at 9:24 PM on July 5, 2008

my son mostly trained himself. He was sixteen months old. Waiting until three or four is an embarrassment.
posted by boo_radley at 9:26 PM on July 5, 2008

antiquarian Freudian doctrine leaking in

Wouldn't that be leaking out?
posted by emelenjr at 9:29 PM on July 5, 2008

18 months is a young, at least in my situation. Between two and three seems right, developmentally speaking.

Nursery schools should have regular potty times where they line up the class and bring them to the bathroom. My kids' preschool did this, as I'm sure just about every nursery or preschool has regular potty breaks with assistance if needed for kids two and over. My kids were potty trained before they started preschool, but still. If they didn't have regular potty breaks they probably would have accidents. It's kind of sad that some nursery schools don't do this basic task.

I'm pretty lazy and I managed to potty train my kids just fine. I doubt that the parents don't have time or are too lazy. From the articles it seems that a lot of kids are in full-time nursery care and the nursery school teachers are overextended. The kids have no choice but to pee in their pants.

It's not horrifying, but just a little different and a tad disturbing.
posted by LoriFLA at 9:30 PM on July 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

compared to the former norm of 18 months.

I'm not able to find any documentation anywhere suggesting that 18 months was a normal age for potty training. Developmentally most children don't even have the skills to learn it until 24 months.
posted by tkolar at 9:35 PM on July 5, 2008 [5 favorites]

Having worked in childcare and going by my children, I lay the blame squarely on pull-ups.

I always believed kids learn to pee in the toilet when they feel physically uncomfortable wearing peed-in or pooped-in underwear. Pull-ups, being basically disposable diapers, magically whisk away the wetness, protecting baby's delicate skin - and as a bonus, the parents don't have to mop up accidents. And nothing could feel worse than wet underwear inside rubber pants.

The mopping up part is probably not workable in day care for sanitary reasons.

When my daughter was two, her child care teacher took all the kids to the bathroom every hour or so - I am sure they spent most of their day in there.
posted by katiewa at 9:46 PM on July 5, 2008 [3 favorites]

I've been told that a child is a a blessing that forever changes the scope of your life; a gift more fragile than china, more precious than gold; the passport to an ineffable and profound joy. It sounds like a bunch of shit to me.
posted by stavrogin at 9:59 PM on July 5, 2008 [23 favorites]

You silly Brits call diapers "nappies?" So what do you call it when you take a short snooze?

I don't even want to know what you think when our radio announcers say "nappy headed ho's..."
posted by TechnoLustLuddite at 10:05 PM on July 5, 2008 [6 favorites]

Diapers are more absorbent than they used to be (here's a Malcolm Gladwell article that will tell you more than you'd ever want to know on the subject). Wet cloth diapers are (I assume) a lot more noticeable and annoying.

I'm toilet training my youngest right now - in part because it's the right time for him, in part because I have reached my tolerance level for cleaning up human excrement. Or any excrement for that matter. He's three, I don't feel particularly embarrassed about that fact, he sure as hell doesn't, his school is working with us on the process, and all's well in our world. I don't think I'm a negligent or clueless parent because of the fact, and I don't think he's going to end up in therapy - for this particular issue.

Most of the advice I received about toilet training fell along these lines - basically wait until your child is somewhat willing to entertain the idea, and don't freak out because you'll have much better opportunities to irrevocably fuck them up later in life. This seemed to be common wisdom in the parenting books that I read, so maybe we're now paying the price in beshitted toddlers as a result. But there's a huge difference between ages 3-4 and 5-6, both in terms of the kids themselves and the institutions that care for them. My 3-year old's preschool has a changing table in the bathroom; my 6-year old's elementary school doesn't. So I'm reserving my panic as of now.

But if the media wants to make mothers feel like crap yet again because of some new social ill- especially working mothers, what with their day care and busyness and all - far be it from me to stand in the way.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have laundry to do.
posted by bibliowench at 10:05 PM on July 5, 2008 [14 favorites]

I am following the same advice as bibliowench for my three-year old. My daughter just never seemed to notice she was wet with the absorbent diapers and so when I tried training her earlier she was freaking out. My (ex-)disorganized day care didn't seem to have a schedule for taking the kids to the potty at regular times, and didn't want her to 'go commando' because she might have an accident. After two weeks away from day care she's almost 100% trained with bribery needed only occasionally.

I long for the day when it is none of my business that my kid just pooed. What's the next thing I get to feel guilty about?
posted by Eccentric Genius Billionaire at 10:21 PM on July 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Here in Armenia, babies are toilet trained around age 1.

BUT, parents/grandparents/caregivers are around more, and perhaps more in-sync with the baby's cries/patterns/etc. Plus, diapers are expensive!

There was an article I read once online that detailed how the training process works, but I can't find it now.
posted by k8t at 10:29 PM on July 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

I wear a diaper at work. But I'm an astronaut.
posted by muzzlecough at 10:32 PM on July 5, 2008 [3 favorites]

Hey, muzzlecough, I think its time for a road trip (SLYT, but with ukulele).
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 10:37 PM on July 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

Here in Armenia, babies are toilet trained around age 1.

k8t please explain how that works. Does "around age 1" mean 10-14 months? 12-25 months? Inquiring minds want to know!
posted by popechunk at 10:39 PM on July 5, 2008

On the other end of the spectrum....perhaps parents ought to go the diaper free route.
posted by brookeb at 10:59 PM on July 5, 2008

Here in Armenia, babies are toilet trained around age 1.

Really? At age 1? I didn't think human brains had the ability to have full control of their sphincters that young. Well, at least I thought, after reading this pediatrician's article who says 18 months to 4 years is pretty much the normal range for a child to be potty trained.
posted by jaimev at 10:59 PM on July 5, 2008

My daughter is at 18 months and is trying so hard to potty train herself. It's quite amazing actually. She asks to "go potty" at least once per hour and goes about half the time. She is obviously eager to learn and we haven't pushed her in the slightest.

I'm sure it's more her own personality as my nephew (who was raised very similarly) was still wearing diapers regularly until his fourth birthday. I really think the kid determines when they are ready more than the parents do.

My advice to any parent is to just chill the fuck out. Do your best to nurture them and they'll figure it out at their own pace.
posted by Octoparrot at 11:06 PM on July 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

I don't know all the details, but my friend recently lamented that her 16-month-old's becoming potty trained was "later than everyone else." And when I told my officemate that our niece is still wearing diapers at night at age 2, she seemed quite surprised.

FOUND THE ARTICLE!
posted by k8t at 11:07 PM on July 5, 2008

I think a lot of times when parents (and grandparents) talk about potty training at very early ages (6 months or 1 year), they don't mean that the kid is using the toilet totally without parental supervision. Instead, the parent learns to recognize the cues, whether behavioral or scheduling, that the kid is about to pee or poop and puts the kid on the toilet. Net result is that the kid is not in diapers - a big boon if the cost of laundering/purchasing diapers is significant.

But there is a big difference between regularly putting your kid on a potty to avoid dirty diapers, and having Junior be able to toddle off and take care of business by him/herself - to call both of these "potty training" is rather misleading.
posted by that possible maker of pork sausages at 11:11 PM on July 5, 2008 [4 favorites]

I used to babysit for a kid who, when she was only a year and three months, mind you, would go use the toilet when she had to (having learned by watching her older siblings, I assume). Her parents kept her in diapers, though, because all the literature they read said that a year and three months was too young to potty train your kids.
posted by phunniemee at 11:13 PM on July 5, 2008

My daughter just turned two and she absolutely will not acknowledge or tell us that she needs a diaper change. This includes #2. Anyone have any suggestions?
posted by Kickstart70 at 11:24 PM on July 5, 2008

"....parents say they don't have time to toilet-train..."

I knew I wasn't gonna ever have time to toilet train my child. I knew this because I'm a selfish prick and I know I'm gonna die before I reach the age of senility, so I won't need to have a child to grow up and take care of me when I get old. Not that the blighter would anyway; selfish prick that he'd be by then. So how did I resolve this? I didn't have children. Yes, I am a genius. You may now touch my garment and massage scented oils into my feet.
posted by ZachsMind at 11:37 PM on July 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

My daughter just turned two and she absolutely will not acknowledge or tell us that she needs a diaper change. This includes #2. Anyone have any suggestions?

Getting a baby doll that goes potty seemed to really impress my daughter. It's worth a shot. At the very least she'll have a little baby doll to play with and I think it was less than $30.
posted by Octoparrot at 11:38 PM on July 5, 2008

As far as I know, in the US anyway, girls usually are "ready" i.e. communicating their need to go potty and interested in wearing big kid underwear, by 1.5-2, and boys take a bit longer, with up to about age 3 being not too much to worry about. A major complicating factor is that it's common for parents to have a second child right around prime toilet-training age, which in some kids (especially boys) tends to cause a bit of a regression for attention's sake.

This was the case over fifteen years ago when I worked daycare, predominately with kids who spent more time in daycare than at home. WTF happened in between then and now?
posted by desuetude at 11:43 PM on July 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

One thing to remember, in regards to very young ages, is the difference between "potty timing" and "potty training". Some kids simply have a regular schedule either in terms of time of day, or a certain time after a meal, which leads some parents to claim their 1-year old is trained, and they start putting them in normal pants. They're all in for a surprise when those real impulses kick in.

My almost-2-year old isn't toilet trained (we have experimented) but we are taking the view (put forward by those damn parenting books), that later is generally easier. We're setting his 2nd birthday as the start of when we start putting an effort into it.

But 5? I remember being 5, and the thought of shitting in my own pants at that age would have been deeply embarrassing to me.
posted by Jimbob at 12:09 AM on July 6, 2008

Everything I've read says that the age when children will be ready to toilet train varies enormously. It's one of those things that you just can't do until they're developmentally ready for it.

Those societies who are 'toilet training' very early are almost certainly doing what one paediatrician's book I read called 'toilet timing': ie, either putting the child on the potty every hour or less, or alternatively having a carer around who is able to pick up on the signs that the child is about to need it!

It is probably true that the chemically absorpant nappies delays things a bit, since the child doesn't notice that they're wet. In Toddler Taming by Christopher Green, he suggests that 18 months is the absolute earliest that toilet training is possible, and 2 to 2 and a half years is perfectly normal. Being night trained is a whole different ballgame though: The 'normal' range is 18 months to 8 years!

NB. I wouldn't trust the Daily Mail an inch on a topic like this.
posted by pharm at 1:25 AM on July 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

My new stepson is mostly potty trained well before 2, in Tajikistan. It's pretty much exactly as k8t describes it in Armenia. You need people around the kid who are attentive, and no diapers.

I wasn't there much to see this, but basically when the little guy would squirm and fuss, and the caregivers knew that the time was right based on when he ate, it was time to take him to the bathroom. They hold him, with his legs spread, over a large basin. He poops.

It doesn't task long, or too many accidents, for the kid to get with the program. He always asks to go now (he is just over 2 years). I am guessing regular routine and it being very unpleasant to shit yourself without diapers are the two big factors helping make it happen.
posted by Meatbomb at 2:16 AM on July 6, 2008

I blame parents for children. Everything after that is inconsequential detail.
posted by srboisvert at 2:28 AM on July 6, 2008

Zach'sMind writes: I didn't have children.

The gene pool thanks you for this.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:21 AM on July 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

My children, who are 19 and 22, apparently take care of their "personal needs" on their own. So whatever I did seems to have worked.
posted by nax at 4:03 AM on July 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

I am continually amazed at how bad people are at parenting. Were people always this shit at it?

I expect they were, and we just track it better these days. Parents definitely seem lazier, whinier, and more afraid of their own children than ever before.

I often see parents who look utterly terrified of their kids. It SHOULD amuse me, but it's simply too scary.
posted by chuckdarwin at 4:13 AM on July 6, 2008

I am continually amazed at how bad people are at parenting. Were people always this shit at it?

Actually, they used to be a lot worse. Even in my lifetime, most parents thought nothing of handing out a beating for a minor infraction of some inconsequential disciplinary rule. Slightly earlier, they'd send you up the chimneys or down the mines to earn your living before you'd reached your teens.

The upside of all this is we had more stoical and less whiny adults, but I'm not sure you could consider it 'good parenting'.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:17 AM on July 6, 2008 [5 favorites]

Well, shit...
posted by Kinbote at 5:18 AM on July 6, 2008

I often see parents who look utterly terrified of their kids. It SHOULD amuse me, but it's simply too scary.

Man, have you met children? Eating, shitting, pissing agro machines, with a special knack for permanently dissasembling complex and expensive electronic equipment, stepping precisely and deliberately in the dog shit on the lawn, and knowing the exact combination of keys to bash to send Windows into a kernel panic while it deletes your most precious files.

I well expect to continue to be terrified of my child when he's paying for my nursing home.
posted by Jimbob at 5:21 AM on July 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

It's so variable, and depends on the child. My three ran the gamut.

Meanwhile my grandson asked to use the potty at 17 months-he'd seen other children do so-his mom works part time doing some child care at a gym. So in my opinion it is a combination of readiness and socialization.

Meanwhile, this thread is useless without this.
posted by konolia at 5:26 AM on July 6, 2008 [6 favorites]

ZachsMind: I didn't have children.

FlapjaxAtMidnite: The gene pool thanks you for this.

Actually it never did. I'm still expecting the check.
posted by ZachsMind at 5:29 AM on July 6, 2008

my son mostly trained himself. He was sixteen months old. Waiting until three or four is an embarrassment...

Why is that an embarrassment? My son is developmentally advanced in most ways, but didn't get the hang of potty training til he was a bit over 3. I know someone else that zealously swallowed one of these "super-kid potty-training at 6 months" deals, and her kid still pisses the bed every night.

I agree, it would be ideal to have members of the extended family home with the child all the time to help with this sort of thing, but it's not always possible.

Your son trained himself at 1 months--wonderful, you should be proud. Remember, not every child is like your son; some will be better at certain things, some not as good, and the same skills develop at different times in different kids. "Normal" is a range, not a single date. In short, don't be so judgmental, boo radley.

Any way, as far as potty training goes, you absolutely can't send a kid to school in diapers/nappies. School teachers have enough crap to deal with.
posted by Mister_A at 5:44 AM on July 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

In Soviet Russia, toilet trains you.
posted by wabbittwax at 5:49 AM on July 6, 2008

"zealously swallowed"

I really wish you hadn't used that phrase.... just saying...
posted by HuronBob at 5:51 AM on July 6, 2008

Seriously though, toilet training is not something that should be left to someone else. As for my kids, I rely on my wife to do the dirty work.
posted by wabbittwax at 5:53 AM on July 6, 2008

Speaking as Mrs.Wabbittwax and your friendly neighbourhood daycare provider....please don't leave potty training to your wife or your kid's daycare. It's something that all the adults in a child's life need to be on the same page about. It takes a village and all that crap...
posted by Abbril at 6:13 AM on July 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

We housebroke a puppy when training each of my boys (14 months apart in age), and we started each of them when they turned 18 months. Training the dogs sort of objectified the process for the kids, I think, and they got to be part of rewarding the doggie for "good behavior," although our younger one got into a little "expected reward" loop of his own that was a little unnerving for company (he expected a pat on the head and praise from everybody in the house whenever he hit the bathroom on his own, which got to be real frequent when company came over).

It did make for about 6 weeks of intense fascination for the whole household with mammalian excretory functions, during each training cycle...
posted by paulsc at 6:22 AM on July 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Currently, we're looking for daycare, and if she wasn't trained already.. we would because tuition is lower when they're trained.

My mother-in-law was in absolute shock that we hadn't begun potty training our 18 month old, and I told her in America we wait a little longer than the Czechs. I know my daughter very well, and I will know when she's ready.
Our Czech friends with children put them on a little potty and either feed them their meal or give them a book and wait for them to "go". This is how they train them, and they began at 10 months old.
It didn't phase me that Czechs begin training this early. Diapers are ridiculously expensive there, they're very conscious about their garbage, and it's what they're accustomed to. My daughter's highchair, while visiting Czech, had a hole under her bottom so she can expel anytime she wants while having her breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I didn't use it though.
posted by czechmate at 6:38 AM on July 6, 2008

Our son was about three when he was potty trained. It took a day and a half and he only had one accident.

Worked for me.
posted by Lucinda at 6:54 AM on July 6, 2008

"...a situation that has fuelled the explosion in nappies in the classroom."

Exploding nappies does sound like a real problem. Also possibly a very effective terrorist tactic. Ewww.
posted by SixteenTons at 7:20 AM on July 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

I actually have faint memories that are probably of toilet training, which means I must have been 3 at least. But, konolia, if anyone had showed me a cartoon with a laughing, talking toilet, I would have been wearing diapers to the third grade.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:21 AM on July 6, 2008

From what I've seen, having a kid is the fastest way to literally become a boring asswipe.

/said this in some other thread. Bears repeating.
posted by autodidact at 7:22 AM on July 6, 2008

My daughter's highchair, while visiting Czech, had a hole under her bottom so she can expel anytime she wants while having her breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I didn't use it though.

The hole or the highchair?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:54 AM on July 6, 2008

Can we not have a rule which prevents using anything from the Daily Mail as a source? They make stuff up to outrage the middle classes of the UK. The weather is about the only thing that might have some basis in fact in that paper. Still, "fueled the explosion in nappies in the classroom" he he ha ha ho ho ho.
posted by merocet at 8:02 AM on July 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

I am raising an eyebrow in the direction of anyone not related to me who cares about my kids' bathroom habits.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:11 AM on July 6, 2008 [3 favorites]

Sounds to me like two or so is normal from this thread. (And from my experience.) Eastern Europeans, though, apparently have some post-Communist methodology they are keeping secret.
posted by kozad at 8:15 AM on July 6, 2008

Mister_A: I'm sorry; I don't mean that it's an embarrassment for your son, but waiting until a child is 3-4 to consider the idea of potty training is. My bad.
posted by boo_radley at 8:16 AM on July 6, 2008

I am raising an eyebrow in the direction of anyone not related to me who cares about my kids' bathroom habits.

If you're happy to have them wallow in shite until they're twenty one, then go for it. That's nobody's business but yours and theirs.

But if you were to do that, I daresay you'd end up with a very asymmetrical expression on your face.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 8:59 AM on July 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

I was toilet-trained at 3 months. By 6 months I was training others.
posted by Zambrano at 9:44 AM on July 6, 2008 [4 favorites]

This disturbs me almost as much as kids who are still breastfeeding at age 4 or 5. That shocked the hell out of me when I read about it. I imagine that in 100 years kids will be shitting their pants and feeding from mom well into their teens.
posted by TochterAusElysium at 10:11 AM on July 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

If you're happy to have them wallow in shite until they're twenty one, then go for it.

But that's not what happens - even the most dim-witted mouth breathers in my son's kindergarten class, the ones with the parents whose child-rearing techniques make me want to unleash my inner Helen Lovejoy on them, have managed to figure out that crapping their pants is no longer as fun as it used to be. Even us embarrassing parents who've waited until 3 to institute an underwear-only regimen, manage to get our kids out of diapers before the models on the Pampers box start to be old enough to look vaguely ashamed of their gig.

That's what makes me so annoyed by the articles - they both slide from stating that the average age of toilet training is between 2-4 to claiming that more kids are going to be spraying toxic shit on their elementary school peers:

Teachers believe the increasing use of full-time day care also has promoted a culture where it is normal for three and even four-year-olds to wear nappies.

Most children are usually toilet trained between two and three years.

There is so much developmental difference between 2-3 and 5-7, and these articles don't show a clear connection that the behavior in the earlier ages will lead to widespread problems later.

I'm so sick of the attitude of Parenting: ur doing it wrong. Eating, sleeping, playtime, daycare, education - make parents worry endlessly about every single goddamn choice, and you can sell more newspapers, especially new parents who are already convinced that they don't know what the hell they're doing. Of course, I just get this attitude from the media and the occasional internet comment; I and my fellow parents would socially cut anyone who repeatedly questioned our parenting choices, especially since none of us are feeding our kids gruel and beating them with wire hangers, and all of us seem to have functional, beautiful children.

I worry about my kids. I'm worried that they'll lose confidence in themselves because of a bad teacher or a destructive relationship. I'm worried that they'll become too dependent on drugs or alcohol or video games or anything else that, taken in excess, can dilute the joy of life. I'm worried that they'll settle for a job they hate. I'm worried that they'll be caught with a joint or with a girlfriend one year younger than they are and end up branded a criminal for the rest of their lives. I worry that they'll settle for a job or a spouse they don't really want and regret it later. I'm worried that they'll be so disappointed when they find out how fallible I am that they'll make it their life's goal to distance themselves from me and everything I stand for.

I am not worried about their toilet training.

And if I wasn't currently going through the process, I probably would be a lot less vocal about it.
posted by bibliowench at 10:17 AM on July 6, 2008 [14 favorites]

Parents are incompetent, civilization is in decline...
posted by Avenger at 11:24 PM on July 5


In the year two thousand.....


Parents are incontinent and civilization is in decline.
posted by gauchodaspampas at 11:14 AM on July 6, 2008

When my daughter was two, her child care teacher took all the kids to the bathroom every hour or so - I am sure they spent most of their day in there.

this seems to be more about the natural failings of group education at earlier and earlier ages than anything else. the teachers have too many kids to supervise, the children are younger than they've ever been in the history of public education and mass child care--and there's not enough adult aid in the "classroom" to deal with the natural consequence of that fact. and don't forget that parents have developed a culture where they imagine it's normal to spend less and less time with their children, regardless of how big their family income is.

this article probably added another 100 families to the homeschooling population.
posted by RedEmma at 11:17 AM on July 6, 2008

You silly Brits call diapers "nappies?" So what do you call it when you take a short snooze? I don't even want to know what you think when our radio announcers say "nappy headed ho's..."

Those are ho's who are ready for beddie byes, right?
posted by Phanx at 2:09 PM on July 6, 2008

What a source of inspiration for my next Sci-fi opus:

The America of 2080. Impoverished diabetic obese illiterate uber-patriots sitting around in hover-rascals litterally shitting themselves waiting for Jesus to to kill all the terrorists.
posted by tkchrist at 5:11 PM on July 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

boo radley wrote: my son mostly trained himself. He was sixteen months old. Waiting until three or four is an embarrassment.

As a mom of three very different kids, I absolutely love it when parents of one child generalize to all children based on their vast experience.
posted by not that girl at 5:22 PM on July 6, 2008 [3 favorites]

Appears to be a problem elsewhere, so not just Daily Mail territory
posted by A189Nut at 6:31 PM on July 6, 2008

Corpse in the library, stay in the library and I don't care. However, if we are going to be an airplane together, I care - very very much - about your child's bathroom habits and your ability to manage them.

Otherwise, feel free to raise that eyebrow.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 6:36 PM on July 6, 2008

We were completely unsuccessful with toilet training. We tried and tried, but our toilet still just sits there. Won't roll over, won't do nothing.

It's very embarrassing.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:25 PM on July 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

not that girl: I love it when you miss my mea culpa. Go back and find it.
posted by boo_radley at 8:32 PM on July 6, 2008