Potty Training Stinks

I will spare you the details, because I'm busy trying to block it out, but, um...

It was my fault. I did tell her that if she went in the potty today, we could go to McDonald's for lunch. That was stupid, stupid, stupid.

She told me when it was time. She made it in there. I got the diaper off. Mayhem ensued.

She's going to McDonald's, because it was a good attempt. I guess it's the actual sitting on the potty part that we need improvement on.

Someone needs to open a potty-training boot camp. Send your kid away and for a couple hundred bucks to the "expert," she comes back potty trained. Wouldn't that be awesome? We could also have a weaning boot camp, while we're at it. Buy one, get one free? I'm all about a deal.

I feel like I'm doing this all wrong. I'm trying to be all low-pressure about it. I ask her, a few times a day, if she wants to try the potty. She almost always says no unless I promise her a car or a pony or something. I don't want to give her some kind of complex Freudian issue that she'll need eons of therapy to overcome, someday, but at the same time, buying diapers for two is very spendy.

And I don't know if I am ready for her to be potty trained, to be honest. I really don't love the idea of visiting every public restroom in the world every time we're out, because her little bladder is the size of a peanut. It is kind of convenient to just be able to change her diaper in the car, rather than risking staph or strep infections in some seedy gas station bathroom. I'm a bit of a germ-o-phobe. I don't want to have to carry a can of Lysol with me for the next couple years, I really don't.

Maybe I'll just stop. Maybe someday, years from now, we'll look at each other over a glass of wine or a cup of General Foods International Coffee, and she'll say, "Gee, Mom, before I get my Ph.D. next week, we should probably tackle that whole potty training thing, don't you think?" and I can say, "Sure, honey. Here's the Lysol..."