Delving into potty training

Now I know my child is a precocious little twerp but most kids his age can follow rudimentary instructions. If Johnny can ask to feed the dog, which he does morning and evening, then he can ask to go to the loo if he knows that option is available to him. It's not so much that I'm sick of changing nappies as I'd like to give my child some dignity as soon as possible.

A generation or two ago we were all in cloth nappies and our parents couldn't wait to get us into knickers. Then came the disposable generation and suddenly 2 years old is early for potty training. I actually read of someone asking if 20 months was too early to start but her dear daughter keeps removing shitty nappies and playing around in the poo. They tried taping the nappies on, but she manages to get them off anyway. Fancy that.

I've been familiarising Johnny with the toilet for the past week or two, but only managed to get a decent potty seat yesterday, so didn't start taking his pants off until this morning. I got some pull-ups and put them in the bathroom closet and will do all nappy changes in the bathroom, dropping poo into the toilet and letting him see it flush. The idea is that he's currently processing sequences well, so it's time to learn that the bathroom is where we go to pee and poo.

This evening I put him on the toilet and since the nappy I took off was full, I wasn't expecting anything and didn't worry that he was misaligned. His firehose was on top of the seat, and both of us were taken off guard when it started to spray. "Uh-oh" said Johnny; "Good job!" said I.

So there we are, officially potty training. There is one draw back, though, and that's that the toilet is now lit up like a Beverley Hills Christmas tree and is on the radar for exploration. He had both hands in the toilet this morning, which does make your stomach turn a little even if it is supposed to be more sanitary than the kitchen sink.