Clark and his throne.

I used to make fun of the mom's and dad's out there who boasted of their child's ability to poopoo in a toilet. It just seemed ridiculous to me that they felt the need to tell the world about something that 100% of people learn to do at some point in their lives. But by george, if we owned a ladder I would climb up on my rooftop on a day that wasn't so hot and shout to my little corner of Madison, Mississippi that my son, Clark Randall Rice, has done it. He is potty trained. But that is not the only thing I am so proud of. I'm going to say what I am so proud of in a separate sentence and use italicized words for added effect:

He potty trained without having one single accident. 

What do you think about that? Pretty amazing, right? Either I am a wonderful potty trainer or Clark is just a really awesome and brilliant toddler. I'm going to go with the latter because I pretty much never have a clue what I'm doing. Ever. He picked it up so easily and I'm one proud mama bear.

I really don't know how it even happened. I guess it started with me letting him spend 90% of the day in his birthday suit. If I'm honest, I would admit to myself the only reason I did this is because I didn't have the patience or energy to chase him around my house waiving a diaper in the air and threatening him with a spanking if he didn't lay down so I could put it on him. So he roamed naked all day while we were at home, which is when he started using the little Elmo potty that has been poorly decorating our guest bathroom for a year.

And then on a bright and sunshiny day in May, I took him to Walmart and let him pick out the undies of his choice...Mater and Go Diego Go were his choice. These two characters are celebrities in our house right now. We stayed close to home for a couple of weeks and I let him wear his new undies for small chunks of time. One day I decided to take him out in public wearing undies, and much to my surprise, he didn't pee his pants. The chunks of time that I let him wear his undies grew longer and longer and eventually he wasn't peeing even in his diaper. And then one day he graduated to the real potty and hasn't looked back since. Makes a mama proud.

Every time he went in the Elmo potty, he got four M&M's, tons of praise, I would do an embarrassing happy dance for him, and he got to call Aaron at work and tell him what he did. Now imagine this: Aaron in his office surrounded by attorneys and secretaries, huge books and files everywhere, everyone around him talking legal jargon that I never understand, important clients probably roaming the halls, and Aaron sitting behind his desk on his phone exclaiming in a loud voice for the entire office to hear, "YOU POO POOD IN THE POTTY!?! THAT'S GREAT CLARK!" This scene played out at least four times every day. He loves to brag to his dad about his poop accomplishments. He often would request to call certain lucky friends and family members who had to pretend to be incredibly excited at this notion. They were all good sports about it and for that I am grateful.

Now when nature calls, he stops what he is doing, yells to the world, "My need to tee tee!" and runs to the bathroom. When is finished, he finds me or Aaron or Griffin and says, "My tee teed! Come see what I did!" So as a family we gather in the bathroom and admire the contents of the potty. Gross? Yes. But whatever. Then he flushes as we say bye bye to whatever was in there, and then like clockwork Clark will run out of the bathroom toward the pantry screaming, "Get some enoms!" Note: Enom is Clark's version of M&M.  So he gets his four M&M's, takes them to the coffee table where he puts them in one of his trains and rides them around for a few minutes before he eats them. It's a beautiful routine that we repeat upwards of 40 times per day. His favorite thing in the world is to pee in the grass or in a large body of water. Sometimes if I think he's feeling blue, I'll ask him if he wants to go in the backyard and tee tee in the grass and he will perk up and smile. I'm assuming I can't do this when/if I have a little girl, so I'm taking advantage of it.

I still cannot believe he has never peed or pooped his pants. Maybe his success lies in the fact that I drug it out sooooo much? I don't know. But it was super easy, I never once got stressed out about it, and Clark gets to eat M&M's for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and 20 times in between so he is elated. I also cannot believe he is old enough to even be potty trained. That was a huge milestone that always seemed so far in the distance. What do I have to look forward to now? Reading? Armpit hair? Nothing seems as big a deal as potty training.

Cheers to Clark for being a champion at everything he does!