Betsy Wetsy

My son, Ben, is the proud owner of his very own…

BETSY WETSY.

Ben is now three-and-a-half years old, and he is extremely resistant to toilet training.

Of course, Elizabeth was potty-trained at two, with very little effort on our part. We pointed to the toilet. She went. Done deal. Never made it past Size 3 Pampers.

Sam was a bit more difficult, but very determined. I vividly remember him coming down with a vicious case of the flu that left him dehydrated to the point that we wound up in the hospital on an IV. He was wearing Pull-Ups, but he asked me if he could go potty. I told him he could just use his Pull-Ups this one time because he was so sick. But he insisted on walking down the hall to the restroom. There he was, my little man, shuffling through the ER wheeling his IV stand all the way to the toilet. It was an heroic thing to witness.

Sam’s threshold? Size 5. Barely broke into the box, but we had crossed the line.

Ben? Size 6 and counting. I even went all Mommie Dearest and switched from Pampers to Huggies, assuming that Pampers were far too absorbent and therefore too comfortable for Mr. LeMar. After Size 6, our only other option will be Depends. I have nightmares that I will have to sneak Ben into preschool, sliding under the radar of the no-underwear-no-shoes-no-service preschool standard, only to be turned away after he soils his adult incontinence undergarments and rats himself out.

True story. We stopped at a rest area on our way home from Sioux City before Ben was born, and I witnessed a frustrated mother changing her SEVEN-YEAR-OLD son in the restroom. She was trying to reason with him. If you are having an existential battle with your child regarding diapers, it’s gone too far.

Ben is *this close* to “too far”. We introduced the concept as soon as Ben expressed interest, just like parents are supposed to do. But I have this feeling that as the baby he knows he’s getting exclusive time with Mom and Dad because we have to change his diapers. Trouble is, the older he gets, the more the deposits evolve. Without getting into too much detail, the days of “sweet-smelling” breastfed-baby jobbies are long, long, long gone.

(And whomever decreed breastfed babies have sweet-smelling diapers must have been smoking something sweet when they wrote that. Comparatively? Maybe. But there’s nothing sweet about Numero Dos. Ever.)

We’ve rewarded Ben by trucking the entire family to Dairy Queen when Ben merely sits on the potty. He doesn’t even have to do anything but sit, and he earns ice cream. The promises have become grander and grander, if only Ben would actually put something in the potty.

I think we’re up to a supermodel girlfriend and a Lexus at this point. Honestly, I’ve lost track.

So a co-worker of Joel’s leads Joel to (of all places) DrPhil.com. Dr. Phil professes a fool-proof method of toilet training that he swears will work on the most resistant of subjects in a single day. Buy a doll that wets. Load up the doll with bottled water. Let the subject put the doll on the potty. And celebrate profusely when the doll performs as requested.

Dr. Phil promises that Ben will want his own “Potty Party” so badly that he will fling his diapers to the margins for all eternity.

We had to run to Wal-Mart this afternoon to fill in the missing blanks on our school supplies lists, so we checked out the toy aisle and found such a doll. She’s a girl, and Ben has christened her “Lily”.

(As a side note, Wal-Mart had two versions of the same doll on the shelf. One had pursed lips and seemed entirely too grumpy, the other had a pleasant smile on her face. Ben chose the “happy baby”.)

Lily is now sitting on our kitchen counter, waiting for her training to start tomorrow morning. Believe it or not, Ben is JAZZED about taking care of Lily and teaching her how to go potty.

Dr. Phil? If this fails, I have you down for a Costco-sized box of Huggies, Size 6, possibly a pallet of Depends. I’ve never been one to put faith in you before. I’m calling on you now.

Dude, I’m at my wits’ end. This better work.