My Juvenile muse - Potty training

Hi everyone, I've been away for a few weeks and I did miss you all. I missed writing here. So I wrote this. Read and tell me what you think. It is creative non fiction inspired by my potty training experience. Of course I am the trainer. Not the trainee. ;) 

18 months is a good time to want to be environmentally conscious. Americans tell me that I should try  not to clog up land fills with non biodegradable diapers. Potty train the little man and let the poop go down into the toilet, flushed down into a dark abyss inhabited by Excreta Anonymous.

My reason is no less noble, but a bit self serving. Diaper money can become maintenance money for mummy and you know, a happy mummy  is a happy baby, oh well and vice versa too.

So we will potty train. I will go to Ikota Shopping Complex and buy a po’. Yes, a po’. A potty.  A small popo-ing  basin for small people.

“Please can I have a potty”, I say to this lady sitting smack in the middle of baby paradise. Red, blue, yellow and green struggle to project an image on my retina. Retina only registers splendour. Toys, supplies and baby gear. Maybe if I had all the money in the world, I would buy all these for my child and hopefully we can all just lie in the middle of it and breathe in the air and surely we wouldn’t need food again.

“I’ll be right back”, she says, interrupting my reverie.

She returns with a large box. On the carton, there are all sorts of inscriptions, but I look for the one that concerns me. It is ‘potty’. Is this a potty?

Ah yes, I see it. Potty training made easy. Enjoy training your infant. We make it fun. He will drag you to it every morning. We guarantee no accidents in your home. Yes, trust dramatic Americans who call angry winds Katrina and Irene to call a simple discharge from a child’s buttocks an accident.

“How much I ask?”

4, 800 naira.

“You have to be joking”, I say, but no, there’s nothing on her face to suggest a joke.

“Alright”, I say and with a sigh, I count the money. I am wise. If diapers cost that much, surely I can spend 4,800 to ensure I do not ever need diapers. A fixed asset to prevent recurrent expenditure. Yes, a mother must have an accounting background.

I take my purchase home.

“Hey son, here it is. This will save your life and mine. Deliver you from accidents and me from bankruptcy.”

Slowly we open the box and we reveal a shiny red and blue house. Yes, a potty house. In this house is where you find the basin. In this house there is also a battery operated stereo. They say that as soon as the lid is put up, music effervesces from the sides of the basin. Welcome to potty time, it sings in a high pitched melody.  Relax and have fun. And also, as any pressure is applied on the seat as the pressure of a child’s buttocks, the rubber flap on the seat inflates and gives a whoosh feeling which should entice the child to want to sit there longer.

“We shall see”, I mutter. “We start tomorrow by not wearing any diapers and allowing 4, 800 to work on my behalf.”

Tomorrow arrives and I lead my child to it as soon as he awakes. We lift the lid and the squeaky voice- over explodes into the room. Child is amused. I push his bum to it and mimic little groaning sounds. Rubber inflates and tickles said bum. The place becomes an amusement park.

I return later to see a lone poop in the bowl. “Nice, the ministry is moving.”

After few days of half successes and full failures, I arrive home one day to a spectacle. A string of excreta line the tiles from sitting room into toilet. Where is this child? Where is the potty?

Potty is in the child’s hands. Opening and closing the lid is nice amusement. Mechanical energy is translated into sound energy and that is cool. Pressing down the seat flaps with little fingers leads to rubber inflation and whoosh..  nice. He is grinning.

This plan that I and the potty manufacturers had was our plan. This is baby’s plan. To be amused . Popo-ing occurs only as a side attraction.

4, 800 naira  is the price for amusement. A plastic potty basin worth 480 naira is an asset stripped of delusional fantasy. A mother must have an accounting back ground.