I�ve been trying to avoid excessive devotion of blogspace to writing about potties and potty-related adventures here because, well, who really wants to know. But frankly, AJ�s potty training has become kind of an all-consuming topic around here lately and I�m finding it a little hard to avoid, so please accept my humble apologies for the impending scatological entry.

In general, we�ve let AJ make a lot of the major rite-of-passage decisions -- when to stop nursing, when to pack up the high chair, when to make the first obscene gesture at an asshole cutting us off on the Kennedy -- which has worked out okay, because he�s a take-charge kind of guy. He is his own cruise director. So we haven�t especially pushed him on the potty thing. But he�ll be three in a couple of months and we�re starting to feel the pressure, mostly due to the requirements of preschools that he be potty trained by fall.

It�s a weird and somewhat uncomfortable thing feeling like you have a deadline with the development of your child. Fortunately for him, the deadline for the control of his bodily functions is somewhat later than the deadline for my dissertation (although, come to think of it, there are quite a few similarities to the process).

And then there was the incident last week where one of his preschool teachers pulled me as I was leaving the classroom after dropping AJ off to ask me, �Would it be okay if we put AJ on the potty? He�s seems very�regular. And it is the second half of the year, it�s probably time.�

The first thing that ran through my head was, �Oh my God, we screwed up our baby!� And the second thing was, �Regular? Is Metamucil on the approved snack list?�

I am actually incredibly grateful for any additional reinforcements in the potty-training agenda. And it�s hard not to see where it would be better for the teachers, who have to change a whole classroom full of dirty diapers on other people�s children every day. Unless AJ�s the only one left.

Training a boy to use a toilet is challenging. You have to teach him to sit down first, which is not anatomically efficient and lately has resulted in my scrubbing pee off the floor, walls, ceiling and yes, myself, on a fairly regular basis. (Although sometimes this is due not to poor engineering, but to AJ�s own fascination with his capabilities for creative destruction). Moreover, I don�t have the proper equipment with which to demonstrate the correct technique. Although once he masters this part of the project, there are all kinds of visual aids to help him improve his aim once he�s standing up. Like these, for example. And they�re fun for �boys of all ages!�

AJ has launched himself into full-fledged imaginative play this week. I picked up a book for him at the library while he was at school yesterday entitled A Weekend with Wendell. In it Wendell, a young and energetic mouse named Wendell stays with his friend Sophie and her parents while his parents are away for a few days. He manages to turn the house upside down and torment Sophie before she turns the tables on him and they become fast friends. We�ve had a video of this story for some time, but AJ was not drawn in until he saw the book. We read it nearly 30 times yesterday. Today all he has wanted to do is play �Sophie and Wendell.� Generally speaking, he wants to be Sophie and he wants me to be Wendell. He has, in fact, been Sophie for most of the day and he gets mildly irritated when someone calls him AJ. �No, I�m SOPHIE,� he says with a slightly strained but patient voice usually reserved for talking to the feeble of mind. Fortunately, he has developed a silly, squeaky voice for Sophie, so we can usually tell which persona he is inhabiting at any given moment.

I love that he�s doing this kind of thing. I�ve actually looked forward to him being able to play games where imagination takes over the mechanics. But in actual practice, it can be maddening, in part because he doesn�t turn it off and in part because repetition is an important part of the game (as it is with most toddler occupations), and I get bored. I don�t like that I get bored with my wonderful boy. I�m not proud of it. But it is really hard to stay interested in the 300th reenactment of page 15. At one point this morning I zoned out completely until AJ shook my arm and said, �Mommy, what�s wrong?� at which point I realized I had been banging my head against the wall to stay awake.

In an attempt to rescue my brain from its Wendellized state, I�m going to try to unravel the godawful mess that is my current chapter, which I�d really like to finish by next week. A meeting with my elusive thesis advisor for next Thursday. Will it actually take place? Will he have comments on my chapters? Only time will tell.

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