The Potty Diet

     I have found an incredible new diet.  Finally!  After all these years of trying different things to no avail.  South Beach?  Forgetaboutit.  Atkins?  Low carb no carb.  Cabbage soup?  Leave it in the lettuce patch. 

     At last, I have found THE one for me.   It’s easy, fast and effective, and fairly inexpensive.  It’s called the Potty Diet.

     It all began when my twins were two.  Every time one of them wanted to “go” to the potty, I would take them.   (I use the verb “go” here to mean merely “to visit or move from one place to another,” because all we ever seemed to do was “go” visit the room where the potty was.)

     A request to “go” potty is very much like a bomb threat.  You are pretty sure it will never actually happen, but you must operate on the premise that it might.  Thus, the phrase “I need to go potty” would send me catapulting toward the bathroom in record time with said child (or children) in tow.

     Once there, we’d sing, we’d dance, we’d climb on the tub. We’d jump up and down. We’d even wash our hands.  In fact, we’d do everything in the potty room that we should, except actually sit or “go” on the potty.

     After months of this fruitless endeavor, I decided to try another tact.  Bribery. 

     It is, after all, one of the defining qualities of good parenting.  So, in the interest of being a good mother, and in my never-ending quest to set a good example, I would “sit” on the potty and let my children watch me.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? 

     Consequently, in the natural course of things, most times I would actually “go” on the potty in one form or another while my children watched me with focused wonder and delight.

     So far so good.  Now, while I had their rapt attention, I would go for the closer.  The aforementioned bribe...the treat.  In our case, the tried-and -true M & M.  (God bless the Mars Candy Company.)  I would pop one in my mouth, loudly suck on it, and proclaim to my children, “Good M & M.  You go potty too, like Mommy, you get a good M & M too.”

   Christopher and Katherine nodded in understanding.   Now, six months later, they still are nodding and watching Mommy with fascination.  Also, six months later, I am still eating M & M’s.  Which is where my Potty Diet comes in.

     As we “go” to the potty approximately 33 to 48 times per day, I eat M &M’s every visit.  Actually at first, it was just one M & M each time I went; lately, however, in the interest of consistency, I have progressed to hands-full and bags-full per visit.   And the results are incredible. 

     The children still haven’t gone potty.  But so far I’ve gained 23 pounds.

                 

                                                    502 words

                            Copyright  Ó  2004  Lynn Floyd Wright