Mother-of-the-Year Entry #4,826

I am a deeply stupid woman.  Just putting it out there, to ensure that you are clear on that one fact before reading further.

At some point during the fifteen or so years that it took us to potty-train Nick he decided that once he was "completely" potty-trained, he would receive a reward.  To this day, I have no idea how he came up with this concept, but as I'm completely comfortable with offering bribes to my children (and Jason) for Debbie-approved behavior, I agreed.  Jason, of the "pick-and-choose-your-battles" school of being the husband of a Debbie, nodded and grunted his agreement as well to the deal. 

Nick's choice for his reward was Ramone's House of Body Art Color Shifters Playset.  Seriously.  I couldn't make this up if I tried.  Check it out on Amazon. 

To be honest, neither of us expected Nick to ever be completely potty-trained, so we never anticipated having to keep our end of this particular bargain.  Plus I thought something else would catch his interest over the years it took to potty-train the boy.

Flash-forward to yesterday morning:  I'm having a conversation with Bree about my favoritest topic ever- potty training.  In case you're curious, if I had known exactly how maddening it is to potty-train someone, there is not a chance in hell I would have ever made the suggestion that we have kids to Jason back in our carefree, relaxed, childless days.  We should have just bought a boat.  Or something.

Anyway, during the conversation with Bree about getting her out of diapers before she can get an AARP membership, Nick makes a startling statement:  "Mommy, I think I'm potty-trained.  I don't have many accidents anymore.  Let's go get the color changer."  That's what Nick took to calling Ramone's House of whatever-the-hell-it-is.

My reaction, you ask?  Here it is:
CRAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP.

But, a deal's a deal.  So off Nick and I went to pick up the color changer yesterday afternoon.   As we left the house, I wasn't sure if Jason was laughing at me or booking a one-way ticket to Aruba.

Let me be clear about one more thing:  I HATE this toy.  I may have finally found something that annoys me more than the Tea Party.  Although now that I think about it, there are some similarities, neither the color changer nor the Tea Party operate in the manner that makes any sort of sense.

But, as usual, I digress.  The TV commercial portrays a happy little boy, sitting at a table, delightedly playing with Ramone and his buddies in the body shop playset while his parents beam at their happy child.

Lies.  All lies.

The squirt bottle thingy leaks so much water that you need to refill the damn thing every twenty-nine seconds.  You know what else is about twenty-nine seconds?  The amount of time it takes the water in the stupid little dunktank to go from being warm enough to change the stupid little cars another frigging color to being just lukewarm water that can't do a damn thing but get slopped all over my kitchen floor.  Which is fine, because the floor is already covered in water because the cap from a tube of Chapstick would hold more water than the part laughably called the "reservoir."

Of course the minute Nick woke up, he wanted to play with the stupid toy.  Jason actually whistled as he left for work this morning.... wonder why?

And as much as I appreciated the water all over the kitchen floor yesterday (couldn't come up with another reason to not mop this time, with it being all wet already) I wasn't looking forward to our own little waterworld again.

So... this is how I let Nick play with his new toy today:

Now all I can think is "was changing his diapers really that terrible?"

xoxo
Deb