Commando

I'm reevaluating my favorite potty training method. With all three older boys, I decided that just letting them run around bare-bottomed would be the best means to self-awareness. In all actuality, it worked out pretty well. My floor might disagree, but I had quick results with minor, messy set backs.

You might be thinking that this is going to be a Cade post. And that it will revolve around yet another horrific mess story that makes you glad your kids are grown. Or that you have no kids. Or that your kids aren't my kids. But this isn't a Cade posting.

You see, I think my potty training method messed Stone up. Because right now as I'm typing this, he's playing his Daddy's X-box with no pants on. And I mean NO pants. He's got a shirt (one that I'll need to bribe off of him later in order to wash) and his bright green Crocs on and that's it. Commando. Completely.

This isn't his preferred state. He prefers to have shorts on with no underwear. But for whatever reason, this morning he deemed his shorts from yesterday unworthy. And he refuses to wear long pants, which are all he has in his dresser (he's already lectured me on this point).

And here's another dilemma. He doesn't want to go to church anymore. Totally unrelated rant? No. He doesn't want to go because I make him wear underwear. Not because it isn't fun. Not because he doesn't love his teachers. Not because he doesn't want to see his friends. But because Church = Mandatory Underwear.

Scarily, he's become quite a liar to the question, "Did you put your underwear on?" At first he answered truthfully. Then, once he figured out that the truth only led to underwear, he answered by telling me that he had put them on. I (being a very clever mom) asked him what color they were and he grinned. Busted. The next time he answered yes, and when queried about the color popped off, "They're blue" with such panache that I believed him and we went to church. Underwearless. I discovered this while he was sitting cross-legged. So now, no matter how fervently he answers that he applied his undergarments, I double check them before leaving the house.

Who knew a potty training technique could create a pantsless, fibbing, church-avoiding 4-year-old. You see now why I'm reevaluating my method for the Cadester??