My nearly-two-year-old is demanding to use the potty. I’m not sure at what point in my life this became a source of bragging, but I find myself as happy (almost) as when the Chicago Bears won Super Bowl XX.
It is even more impressive to me since Archie doesn’t speak yet. Or, more accurately, he doesn’t speak a version of English recognizable to anyone outside of our Tenth Street house. Archie mastered “Ball” quite some time ago, and has since extended its meaning to include any circular object within view. It is at once and observation and a warning, especially since he will not let up until someone else acknowledges the presence of Ball. There is no snooze on this alarm. Archie’s vocabulary also includes “Robby” (which we take to mean either boy or brother), “Wee-woo” (a reference to the Beatles of kids music, the Wiggles), and a sonic screech with a meaning that is always contextual.
Instead of words, Archie uses gestures to get his potty point across. First, his right hand reaches inside his cloth diapers, accompanied by a low-decible screech requesting immediate attention. Second, he nods with great clarity at the question, “Do you have to go potty?” With that, I whisk him to the bathroom, unsnap his bundle, and then aim him over the open toilet. Archie takes it all in patiently, like waiting for the crosswalk light to change. Then, looking down at the miracle of urination, we watch the event unfold. All of the pagentry is internalized.
Carter was speaking in two-word sentences the morning after the September 11 attacks (“Morning, Daddy” was the phrase that restored some perspective to me). Archie is just a few weeks shy of that point in his life, but he is seemingly light years ahead of his older brother on the potty front. Carter resisted the whole experience for a long time, having failures after every success that prompted him to give it up for another season. We resisted the Cheerios-in-the-bowl and M-&-M’s-by-the-sink techniques but broke down and put up a pee-and-poop chart with some pirate toys as incentive. I’m not sure if that did the trick, offered him some catalyst opportunity, or just happened to coincide when he was naturally ready to go, but Carter hasn’t resisted bathroom time since. He never did finish the chart, which he lost interest in checking off long before we officially took it down.
Archie’s early interest is directly tied to Carter’s success, I’m certain. The second son idolizes the first, frequently doing everything Carter does. Outside, Archie may have a little wanderlust in him, but he is easily kept in the fold by simply asking where his brother is. The toddler stops what he is doing, scans the horizon, and then gleefully hiccups, “Robby!” and scampers back to see what Carter is doing. Archie has watched Carter do his bathroom business so often, he goes through the motions with toilet paper, soap, towels and lights with clockwork precision.
I have little recollection of my own early attempts a potty training — and my adult hangups have me repressing it all again as I type — but I do know that much of my early academic success was credited to my older sister. I wound up outperforming her in school, and often found it somewhat annoying to constantly hear the implication that I only did so because she pretended to be the tough-love teacher handing out massive amounts of worksheets as we played School. Even before seeing Archie pee so effortlessly, I understood the differences between my experiences and hers, and thus bewtween the life paths of my two boys.
Carter will never have an older brother. Never. Archie may have a younger brother someday, but he’ll never be the oldest. Although the egalitarian urge persists that good parents treat their children the same, this difference dictates otherwise. There are a lot of plusses to being the oldest, but it comes with the price of seeing a younger sibling likely advancing faster and being handed more responsibility sooner. I think of that whenever a relative starts comparing the disposition and abilities of Archie and Carter. There are most certainly differences, but neither is by himself the better. Parenting doesn’t work like an assembly line, with each creation queued up to receive the same part at the same station of life. It’s a workshop; we supervise individual construction of identity based on the materials available to each child.
So yes, in the world of toilet training, Willie Gault just caught a bomb for a score. But any Bears fan worth his salt will remember Walter Payton got 1500 yards in the regular season to get him in that position. And Payton, the greatest football player ever, never got his Super Bowl touchdown.