Potty training. It isn't the most fun of times, but it's certainly one of the most memorable. Few parents potty train their sons and daughters without a couple bumps in the road. But sometimes those bumps can be more OMG, what just happened?! as opposed to a little mishap in their Spider-Man undies.
I asked moms and dads who have been there done that with potty training (or who are in the midst of it) what the craziest thing that happened to them was when making the transition out of diapers — and boy, did they share some doozies!
Here are 11 crazy (no, crazy) potty training tales.
Image via Vladimir Godnik/fstop/Corbis
Dressed Up
"When my daughter first started potty training, she had to 'dress up' for it! She refused to sit on the potty any other way! So she'd pick out her favorite clothes, my sunglasses, shoes, etc., and then she would agree to sit on the potty! That's my girl, she loves to look good no matter what!"
At the Table ...
"My daughter had a poop accident while we were at the dinner table eating. She decided it would be a good time to paint the table with her poop."
Pee Up
"My just-trained son laid down on his bed naked before getting in PJs one night. He said, 'What would happen if I peed up?' 'Peed up?' I repeated and then realized what he meant. When the pee rained back down on him, he wasn't too happy, but shortly after that, he was laughing because he 'made a fountain.'"
Big Potty
"My daughter refused to go potty in the big toilet, so we got her a small one that played music. She eventually went in that but insisted on picking it up afterwards and dumping whatever was in there into the big potty."
Outside
"My friend's son initially insisted on only peeing outside. She let him do it for a while but had to stop when he dropped trou in the middle of a the mall and started going in the fountain."
Ow!
"Recently, my son was standing in front of the potty, and he kept putting the toilet seat down. I told him to please stop that, because if it falls down and hits his penis, it's going to hurt really bad. His response? 'Then I'll say, Owwwww son of a BI**H!'"
Is That Poop?
"My now 7-year-old twins painted their bedroom walls with poop one morning while I was getting dressed for work! That was horridly disgusting! A few nights later, I woke up and found one twin with brown all over the bed, walls, and coming out of his mouth! I looked at him and broke down crying, thinking, 'Now he's EATING his poop!' I went to the bathroom, started running a bath for him, and cringed when I went back to his bedroom to scoop him up and put him in the tub. He smelled like … chocolate! The monkey snuck a pudding into bed that morning and ate it!"
The Bath Towel Incident
"When my oldest was potty training, he had this thing about having to stand up — and sometimes he would poop while he was trying to pee. When I was breastfeeding my youngest, my son said he had to go potty. A short while later, I hear my linen closet open and close. He then comes downstairs, holding one of my good bath towels, and said, 'Don't worry mommy, I cleaned it up.' Bye-bye, fancy bath towel."
Finding Nemo
"My son refused to use the potty because of the movie Finding Nemo — all drains lead to the ocean. He didn't want Nemo to get poo on him. So then we get the smart idea to tell him that poo was fishie food. Smart right? Noooooo. I just barely caught him in time bringing the pot to his potty chair to my room, where, yep, we have a fish tank."
I Wanna See It
"My 3-year-old ran down the hallway from his bedroom naked recently. He had something in his hands and ran into the bathroom. I heard a plop and then a flush. I went in and asked him what he did. He said he pooped and then put it into the potty. I yelled at him for pooping on the floor, and he looked at me and said, "No, Mom, I pooped in my hands.' I asked him why he did that, and he said he wanted to see his poop come out of his butt."
Hermit Crab
"The other day I went in and found my son with his face practically in the bowl, saying, 'Awwww, it looks like a hermit crab!'"