The Incident

This is a picture of Augie sitting on the potty. So what, you say? Look closer. You may notice Augie looks a little bit younger. That's because he is. This photo was taken nearly a year ago. I post it today to declare Augie potty trained. And to share a story that I thought I would have shared by now. I call it, The Incident. It goes like this:

Nearly a year ago, not long after this picture was taken, I was sitting at my desk at work minding my own business when my phone rings. It's my wife. I figure she's calling to have me say goodnight to Augie. Instead this is what I got.

"I'm going to kill your dog!!!!!" (Yes, extra exclamation points are necessary, she almost broke my ear drums.)

"What? Why?" I asked.

"He ate the poop!! He ate Augie's poop!!"

As you can imagine, I was hooked. This was going to be a good story.

"Augie was sitting on the potty before bath time, I was reading him a book, and he pooped," she said.

This was big at the time because Augie was just starting to use the potty with some consistency before bedtime -- the first step toward his being potty trained.

"I cleaned him off and turned my back to put him in the bath. When I turned back around, Roscoe had his nose in the potty. I flipped. I screamed at the dog and threw him outside," she said.

Logical choice. Except this is what happened next.

"Now Augie's in the bathtub crying and saying, 'That's not mine. That's Roscoe's,'" she said.

Augie tried to deny responsibility for his own good work. He thought it was a bad thing that he had pooped on the potty, all because Gretchen had to yell at Roscoe, who was still new to the family then.

Six months later, I was able to get Augie to sit on the potty again without crying.

So today's lesson: Kids are impressionable. So watch what you do and say around them. It could cost you six months worth of diapers.

Happy pooping.