A Little Train Accident..

I learned this morning that a toddler being potty trained does not dismiss the possibility of an accident. I have been fretting this day since the thought of myself becoming a stay at home dad entered my mind – the dreaded day Jackson has an accident in public. Today was that day.

Each Wednesday morning I take Jackson up the road to our local Barnes & Noble for story time. It’s not really all that exciting and pretty quick, but Jackson enjoys it each week so I keep on going. They usually read two books and then have the kids color something associated with the book. (Though, it’s kind of annoying when they sometimes decide to make one of the books a story from The Nook) Going there was a little awkward for me at first, as I’m usually the only dad who shows up and it’s always a mix of stay at home mom’s and their nannies. Actually, now that I think about it, most of the kids are there with their nannies. I seriously had no clue so many kids had nannies watch them all day. So weird! I guess maybe that’s an alternative to childcare I suppose.

Anyway, after the books were read and the coloring was done, Jackson whispered in my ear “Train!” You see, each week after story time most of the kids make their way to the opposite end of the store where they have a toy train station setup for the kids to play with it. Jackson insists on playing with the trains every week. Which is fine, but usually he gets upset when it’s time to leave. On a normal week there’s usually about 4 or 5 other kids playing with him and all the parents/nannies standing around. If anything was in my favor today, it was the fact that nobody apparently wanted to play trains today but Jackson.

Well, 9/10 if Jackson needs to go potty he will loudly let me know and we will leave and take care of business. I didn’t even think he would need to go today while we were out because, being the diligent SAHD that I am, I made sure to have him go potty before leaving the house. Nonetheless, He came up to me and said “Papa, Potty!” And halfway into me responding “Okay then, let’s go to..” he started peeing, everywhere, all over his clothes leaving a huge puddle on the ground. Luckily it wasn’t carpet where we were at. And thankfully, this was the day no other kids wanted to play with the trains. Apparently they knew something I didn’t. I thought fast and quickly swooped him up in one arm holding my hand under his pants (I don’t think he was done yet) and quickly scurried to the bathroom and made him finish his business and gave him a little talking to. I was so embarrassed, but I’m not sure if anybody actually saw it happen. After cleaning Jackson up the best I could, I brought some paper towels with me and cleaned up the mess the best I could, but you could still tell their had been an accident. Around the corner I apologized to the lady who had just completed story time and told her of the incident, and quickly fled the scene before anyone else would find out “my” kid was the culprit. As I mentioned I was fortunate. On any normal week this would have happened with five kids and their guardians around, and that sure would have been embarrassing. I would have probably destroyed all stay at home dad’s credibility everywhere! (Ok, just kidding)

I called Lindsey and told her the news, and she reminded me he had another small accident in his bed a few nights ago. We came to the realization that both accidents happened after his surgery last week. I wonder if there’s a connection?

Anyway, so I wonder how brave I’ll be next week, or if I’ll end up putting him in a pull-up. I know I shouldn’t, so I hope he just wasn’t paying attention today. Oh well, I guess I should be gracious. He’s not turning 3 until the end of this month and he’s been potty trained longer than I’ll ever really know. Ukraine orphanages are like the military when it comes to the potty business. He did regress a little bit when he first came home with us, but he quickly caught on to using the toilet. We’ve been fairly lucky, as I know a few families who have adopted internationally that are still having problems getting their kids to be potty trained, so I completely respect that and should be glad he’s potty trained at all.

It was just an accident after all. I still love my guy, even if he does pee his pants in public!