Sure, you can come over. Just don't sit on the couch.

Do you ever get the feeling that your kid is mocking you?  Or trying to teach you some kind of lesson about your own shortcomings?  Welcome to my experience with potty training.  All along, for months now, I thought I was locked in a death battle over potty training.  A few steps forward, a few messes back, but progress overall.  Turns out I was just a pawn in a sick game designed to make me clean, do laundry, and spend money I don't make.

Meredith was basically potty trained at home for at least a month.  But then I think she noticed something.  I think she realized that I wasn't doing enough laundry and wasn't spending enough money on diapers.  I think she saw that, and the little cogs in her tiny baby brain started turning.  "This lady is just sitting around getting fatter, and it actually smells ok in here- how can I fix that?"  And then it occurred to her to just start peeing and pooping everywhere.  That's WAY more entertaining, right?

Plus, Mommy starts looking batshit cray cray.  It goes from "YAY, YOU PEED IN THE POTTY!!!!" screamed so loud that seven people out on the street just heard me- to "Do you need to sit on the potty? Do you need to sit on the potty?" Repeated SO often and so desperately that it starts sounding like the teacher from Peanuts.  You know those Hallmark recordable story books?  I actually considered recording "Do you need to sit on the potty?" on every page and just flipping the pages over and over again.  The title of that book? "I'm Freaking Sick of Potty Training- I Shit You Not."  There's a market for that one, Hallmark.

But all in all, I have to say that I am becoming a better person from dealing with so much uncontained human waste- I am undoubtedly building my quads with endless trips to the basement laundry.  My couches are getting shampooed once a week on average.  I can accurately recall the status of multiple pairs of undies at any given moment- "No, the undies with Ariel on the front are in the wash, but look!  The undies with Ariel all over them are clean!"  But best of all, I now own Lysol disinfecting spray AND three different scents of Febreeze.  Something tells me I'm not supposed to be spraying Febreeze directly ON my child though- can anyone confirm that?  Sounds like an old wive's tale to me.

Meredith just walked by, sans pants.

Me: Um, where are your pants?
Meredith: Um, they're actually wet.
Me: OK, well, what are you doing?
Meredith: I'm in my room.  Just look, there are so many clean pairs of pants in my drawers.

Damnit, she OWNS me.