We've been toilet training Michael. He's pretty much done, and none too soon, as he starts nursery school next week. He's acquired an interesting habit along the way, though. In the early days, he was afraid to poop on the toilet, so, like any good parents, we incented him to do so. In his case, his favorite thing is Thomas the Tank Engine, so we gave him a little toy train. Every single time.
Clearly this wasn't a sustainable practice, since he's always been fairly regular and merchandising tie-ins are expensive. Predictably, this has created a sort of inverse Pavlovian response, as every time he moves his bowels he now expects to receive a toy train by way of compensation.
Apart from the strange looks we get from other patrons in the Gents' as he wails about 'wanting Annie' while we wash his hands, the Trains for Excrement Exchange Programme has had the desired effect in that he's now happy to have a poo nearly anywhere.
In fact, he's proudly deposited the contents of his lower digestive tract in some of the poshest toilets in all of Christendom: Buckingham Palace, The British Museum, Windsor Castle, the Tower of London, some Indian place at the Notting Hill Carnival, and the Island Gardens DLR station (this last, though you may not have heard of it, was quite an achievement, as we had to convince the station attendant to let us use the 'secure' toilet. Apparently, we don't look like the type of people to leave a bomb in his toilet. For the record, we didn't - we flushed.)
This has become something of a hobby with him - seeing on how many famous places he can leave his skid mark. Still, while somewhat inconvenient, this habit is fairly benign. Caroline, on the other hand, has several habits of which Michele and I feel obliged to divorce her as quickly as possible.
First, she cries when we drop her at school. This happens every day, and it's getting old, especially because the wailing starts when we leave the house and it's a 10 minute walk to school. She's fine once she gets there and starts playing with the other kids, but now one of the boys calls her 'the crying girl'. I hate little boys. I think they should all be rounded up and sent off to break large rocks with small hammers. Failing this delightfully Dickensian childcare approach, however, we'll have to figure out a way to stop her crying before the other kids figure out that she's an easy mark and start making her cry just for the hell of it. Because that's exactly what they'll do. Maybe not all of them, but enough of them to make her life miserable.
Second, she's a nose picker. OK, I know, we all are. Yes, you are, too, stop denying it. The real trouble is, she also eats it. Eww. I don't think I ever did that, so I figure she must get it from Michele. The frequency of this has decreased recently, so I assume she's either growing out of it or has gotten full, but I don't want her growing up like that girl we all knew in high school who got busted eating snot in the second grade and spent the remainder of her school years sitting in a corner obsessively picking lint from her sweater and drawing astonishingly realistic pictures of large knives slicing through various body parts. Come to think of it, getting away from one's early childhood history may be one of the benefits of moving around, as I doubt very much that booger snarfing goes on one's permanent record. Does it?
Finally, and perhaps most troubling, is the butt scratching. And I don't mean your run of the mill oh-dammit-I'm-gonna-have-to-change-my-undies-now sort of scratching, I mean full on, both hands down the back of the pants, subtle as a trainwreck sort.
It's not that I'm embarrassed of her behavior. Well, the crying is a little embarrassing because it makes me feel like a bad parent. But let's face it, not one of these things is self destructive, and they certainly don't hurt anyone else; so as far as I'm concerned, she can wail, pick and scratch to her heart's content if that's what makes her happy. The problem is that I know she'll be teased mercilessly for these things. Yes, I also know that if it's not one of these, the kids will find something - that's how kids are - but these behaviors are just too obvious, too juicy for even the most kind-hearted child to pass up.
On the other hand, maybe it's better for her to learn the cruel lesson now. To take a drubbing in her early years and be thereby fortified to face the challenges which will surely come in adolescence and beyond.
No, as rational as that may sound, I think our focus will have to be on breaking these habits. Too bad she doesn't like trains.
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