A wee problem

We had tried potty training before.

And we had given up pretty damned quickly, after what can only be described as "spiteful pooing".

But, with the toddler now quite a lot older, and mostly able to communicate what she needs, and with us both off work for a couple of weeks over Christmas, we thought now would be an ideal time to try potty training. SPOILER ALERT: we were totally wrong.

Day one, midday

Toddler is wearing her big girl pants. She is excited about this. We ask her to sit on the potty every so often. She does. Nothing comes out, but it's going really well. We should have this cracked in about an hour. Maybe two.

Day one, 1 p.m.

Toddler does a little wee in her pants. Reassure her that this is OK. Be relieved that we have "the accident" out of the way. Remind her the potty is for wee-wees. Change her, clean up. On with the day.

Day one, 2 p.m.

Toddler no longer wants to sit on her potty. Wees incessantly in her pants and then cries as she's upset. We tell her that's OK, and remind her that she can put her wee-wees in the potty. Start to do this through very slightly gritted teeth. Consider buying shares in Dettol.


Day one 6 p.m.

Toddler now refuses to go anywhere near potty, or toilet. Clutches herself screaming, "I don't want to wet my pants." She has no such qualms about weeing once she's sitting on my lap and wets my pants as well as hers. Right through my jeans. Neither of us have any clean clothes left.

TheBloke (TM) giggles as both the toddler and I with our bare bottoms hanging out, load our clothes into the washing machine.

We will try again tomorrow.


Day two, 7 a.m.

Toddler is still wearing nappy from overnight. But she won't eat breakfast, and is instead clutching herself and saying, "I wet my pants. Change me!" I try to explain to her that that's OK because she's wearing a nappy, but she doesn't get it.

We put her in her big girl pants.


Day two, 9 a.m.

Toddler has been crying for two hours and fidgeting like a cat on a hot tin roof. She is clearly desperate for the toilet (and great she's recognising the signs) but will not go anywhere near the potty or the toilet. In terms of bribery we have tried so far:

• Chocolate
• Calling Grandma and Grandad
• Father Christmas (brings extra presents for girls who do wee-wee in their potties)
• More chocolate
• Star charts
• The fucking Elf on the Shelf

Eventually she wets her pants and is absolutely miserable. We put her back in nappies. This totally doesn't work.

Day two, 11 a.m.

Toddler now refuses to wee in her nappy either. To recap, now she refuses to wee in:

• Her nappy
• Her potty
• The toilet
• Her pants

She is incredibly uncomfortable and is crying a lot. We try and reassure her that it's OK just to let go. She won't. We try to reassure her that she can go to the potty. "Look! Mummy is on the toilet! Look, Daddy can sit on the potty!"

No dice.

"I don't want to wee-wee," she said.

I explained to her that everybody wees and that your wee-wee has to come out sometime.

"NOOOOOO!" she screamed, inconsolable at the thought of ever urinating again.

And that, Ploggers, in an attempt to show her how weeing in a potty is fine, is how I ended up in the middle of our kitchen, pissing into a potty at 1 p.m. this afternoon.

If you ever decide to go down this route (which I heartily do not recommend), once you have exiled TheBloke (TM) and the video camera from the room, do try and remember that you might need toilet roll. I forgot this.

So at 1.03 p.m. this afternoon, I was calling up the stairs to the recently-exiled TheBloke (TM), who found me sitting in the middle of the kitchen over a pot of my own piss, shouting for toilet roll.

The toddler found the whole thing quite funny.

But sadly, still won't wee.

Pub regulars

I met Hazel when I was about eleven years old, and haven't yet managed to shake her off.

Some would suggest I haven't tried that hard - in fact, when she emigrated to New Zealand, I booked a plane ticket and went and visited her almost immediately. But, I maintain I was just checking she was really gone, and that she wasn't just lying to get attention.

We have remained firm friends throughout the last two and a half decades. As you will see, we have blossomed from awkward-looking teenagers, right through to awkward-looking adults.

This was our school trip to Coventry Cathedral (the glamour), 1993. We look like an even gayer version of The Wizard of Oz. If it hadn't been filmed in technicolor. Lot of grey in that uniform. Hazel and I on the far right. Not in a Nazi way.












School trip to London, 1994. We could wear our own clothes, and for me that could only mean one thing: double denim. Hazel and I on the right again.








We didn't get any more mature as adults, unfortunately, though we learned to dress a bit better.

When we were about 15 years old, at a very academic school together (it mostly consisted of homework, shouting, and shouting about homework), we had fairly similar lives. This mostly involved homework. Playing an orchestral instrument was seen as borderline rebellious (it wasn't - strictly speaking - homework). My parents thought I was sad and needed to get a life. They were probably right, but I'm not sure Mrs Nunn's offer, as reported in my diary, was realistic, legal or helpful:

"Mum says I need to get out more. She has offered to get me a fake ID and drive me and a friend to a nightclub. Or to join Young Farmers."

To this day I am not sure what Young Farmers is, but in my mind - associated with nightclubs as Mrs Nunn clearly did - I imagine it to be a hotbed of hard house and hardcore humping.



Anyway, on one such enforced night out, Hazel and I made a pact, the type that 15 year-olds make - that we would meet up in 20 years time, at the same pub (Peggy's Bar in Loughborough, known primarily not for the quality of its drinks nor its ambiance, but its willingness to serve girls who had very recently turned 15).

I particularly like the fact that I passively-aggressively wrote on the beermat, "Don't worry, I'll remind you!" In actual fact, it was Hazel who kept the beermat, scanned it in and realised that it was in fact this year that we were due to meet.

After having ascertained that Peggy's Bar no longer exists, and we both now live in the South East, we agreed to meet in Central London instead. I tried to find a Peggy's Bar in London, to no avail. After which, I started looking at Loughborough Junction (too far away), and eventually settled on Efes Restaurant, which I decided on because of Efes Kebab Shop that we used to go to for chips with mayonnaise after a night out drinking 20/20.

A lovely night was had by both of us. Mrs Nunn did not have to drive us there, and whilst we fully intend to make sure that we see each other approximately every month from now on, as usual, we have also made plans for twenty years' time.

Well, it's traditional.

Being elfish

For I while, I had been hearing about Elf on the Shelf. It seemed to be an American story book, that came with an elf doll, and seemed to be brilliant for two great reasons:

- The parents hide the elf doll every night so it looks like it's moved by magic (on its way back from visiting Father Christmas), increasing magical anticipation of Christmas

and

- The elf reports on naughty behaviour to Father Christmas, hence derailing some bad behaviour on the way.

As we are firmly in the terrible twos, anything that could stop a tantrum sounded like a good idea. And as I had a (very quick) trip to New York for work in diary, I thought I'd pick up an Elf-based present for the toddler.

Once home from the Big Apple, we opened the box with excitement, and the toddler loved reading the book... which actually is quite horrible. It seems our elf is a nasty little snitch who is watching the toddler all day and passing back any minor misdemeanor to Santa. Santa gets "sad" if you do anything wrong.

Worst of all, apparently the elf will be reporting to Father Christmas whether or not you have been "saying your prayers". Vom. We skipped that bit when we read it to her.

Seeing as we were even in two minds about whether or not to tell her about Father Christmas (as atheists, the idea of lying to a child about an omnipotent being that judges her behaviour, felt hypocritical). We decided to allow it because we are weak and want to have some hold over her behaviour. Next week, we might become fundamentalist Mormons.

Anyway, our elf is just hiding around the house, and it has to be a force 9 tantrum before we suggest that the elf will be snitching.

In the meantime, here is Scout the elf, taking a shit in the toddler's advent calendar.