I knew the time would come when there wouldn’t have been any thing going on during the week worthy of writing about for this blog.

That time has come. This week was fairly innocuous. No worries though. That just means I get to write about an old happening. How about potty training? That’s always fun.

In the Williams’ household it was a hoot. My boys were pretty stubborn about it. I hear boys are harder to potty train than girls. I wouldn’t know though, because I only had the boys. And they really gave me a tough go of it. By the way, they are going to hate me for putting all their business in the street, as they say. But I don’t care. Isn’t that what moms are supposed to do; embarrass their children. That’s how we get them back for all the public temper tantrums they threw in the grocery store. And all the times they repeated some inappropriate thing they heard us say about a family member, friend or neighbor - often times making it sound a whole lot worse than it actually was.

So potty training it is. I never really worried much about the potty training. I had this idea that eventually, when it was truly time, developmentally, my boys would just get tired of making a mess of themselves and go to the bathroom. And to tell you the truth, I think that’s actually what happens, even though we mothers like to think we have done some miraculous thing teaching our children to use the potty.

With my oldest, since he was the first, I followed all the books, got the little toilet potty, and a step stool and at regular intervals during the day I would take him to the bathroom and sit him on the potty hoping he would go. Sometimes he did, most times not. In fact most times he didn’t until he was off and had that diaper back on.

I remember one day after months of working with him and thinking he should have gotten the hang of it by this time. He sat in the floor playing and had an accident. Boy was his dad mad. He said the child was bright enough to know better and was just being lazy, too busy to get up. He was probably right. Anyway I was on my way out the door to work so I asked his dad to do the honors - change the toddler. No way, Ceaser said. I’m going to let him stew for a while maybe then, next time he’ll not do that.

Wait for it.

We had just had lunch, KFC with all the trimmings, including the mash potatoes and gravy.

Wait for it.

Ceaser laid down on the couch and dozed off. Remember, I was at work, so this story came to me second hand when Ceaser called me to share it later that day.

While Ceaser dozed this toddler managed to get mash potatoes and gravy off the dinning room table and dump them both on to his dad’s bottom and all over his dad’s jeans, then sit back on the floor and continue playing, like nothing happened.

It wasn’t too long before his dad rolled over and felt the mushy mess. He jumped up off the couch completely disgusted. About that time he noticed Trey giggling. Trey has always been a practical joker. That was his first joke.

When I heard the story, I swear I howled. Who was teaching who a lesson. Now you know if this child could concoct a plan like that, surly he could make it to the potty, right? And actually, after that he did.

As for my youngest, well he did things like poop in the tub or wet his diaper then take it off and leave it in the middle of the floor, disgusting. No matter how much I tried to get him to go to the potty. He just refused. Then one day he came to me and said, in this adorable two-year-old voice, yet so grown up. “Mommy I’m not going to wet my diaper any more.”

And just like that, he never did it again.

So, you see what I mean. We go through all this angst trying to potty train and then just like any other developmental stage, when they are ready, they just do it. At least that’s the way it worked in my house.