The Flusher Seeks Redemption

Also titled:

“Don’t Hit Your Brother with Your Panties”

“Brady Insures His Position as Houk Baby”

“No, I Not”

A bit of history is required here.  If you’ve read any posts about Brady before, you’ll know he is the cutest, sweetest, most mischevious little toddler around.  See, “Sorry, Mommy” if you need some background info.  And although we are quite content with our 4 children, Brady has taken measures to safeguard his baby-status since he could walk.  I hear Babies (youngest children in a family, that is) have a knack for such antics.  As I changed one of his toxic waste diapers last week, I thought about what outstanding natural birth control that is.  Anyone that is forced into the diaper of a 3 1/2 year old simply cannot think about ever doing this again. 

While it’s true that all kiddos have terrible Twos, and perhaps worse Threes, as we like to call them, Brady has truly tested our limits.  His most powerful, secret weapon:  Flushing. 

We’d never had a child with a toilet obsession before, so we didn’t really know what we were getting into.  Sure, we had the isolated playing in the potty incident, or the toilet paper pulled out in the floor, or even a quick dip into the potty water.  Keely even flushed a drinkable yogurt container when she was 2 and it required a call to the plumber and the toilet had to be removed and flushed out backwards to clear it.  We thought that constituted experience with potty fascination.  We had no idea what was coming. 

Brady is an artist.  There’s no random playing in the toilet for him.  Nope, it’s purposeful, quiet, sneaky, creative, and usually destructive.  I sound like a profiler watching him.  That would be great, except that profilers are usually better at stopping the criminals than I have ever been.  His habit didn’t really start with playing in the potty.  That would have been too easy, I might have caught on.  It was subtle and un-noticed from the beginning.  Un-noticed that is, until the damage was done. 

Let’s jump to right before the 2nd birthday party Fiesta we were hosting here at our home.  Hosting a party at your home = something will need repairing.  We weren’t terribly surprised when one of our toilets started flushing incorrectly.  It didn’t really have the pressure it needed.  That could be a lot of things, right?  Well, we plunged and plunged and plunged.  The problem didn’t seem to get any better.  Years ago, we became proficient with use of the famous plumbing tool, the Snake.  If you’ve not seen or used this thing, you are missing out I tell you.  It’s a long flexible coil that advances through the toilet, actually going throught the curved sections, and generally clearing the obstruction.  I said generally.  It didn’t work for us.  We had one friend who had worked briefly in plumbing and another friend who is actually a plumber.  We just sort of ignored that toilet and let it have an ineffective flush until we could get with one of them and fix it.  Unsuspecting all the while…

Soon after, the toilet in the kids’ bathroom had similar symptoms and didn’t respond to our repair attempts either.  Odd, two toilets in the same house.  When it happened to my toilet in my bathroom, I was ticked!  Here we were, a family of 6 with 4 toilets and I was forced to walk down two flights of stairs in the middle of the night to use our basement bathroom! Immediate intervention was required.  And it’s a good thing, because toilet number 4 bit the dust shortly thereafter. 

Steve got a hold of our buddy, Walt, who is an actual talented, skilled plumber.  He’s a very busy man with kiddos of his own, but has always been good to give phone advice or come help if the problem required it.  You guessed it, the problem required it.  Walt spent the better part of the weekend with us.  For 2 days, he and Steve took off toilets, carried them out to the yard, flushed them out, and re-installed them.  The upside, Steve learned some valuable plumbing skills that would bail us out in the future. 

Walt said in 20+ years of plumbing he had NEVER seen anything like what he saw at our house.  From the first non-functioning toilet, the one on the main level, the following was removed: 

• a pair of swim goggles
• a lego
• a matchbox car
• and a toothbrush

That’s right, all of that out of one toilet.  But wait, from the remaining toilets, here’s a sampling of the goods:

• a trial size hairspray
• Fisher-Price Little People (we later discovered this was a personal flushing favorite of his)
• a razor (nice safety touch, don’t you think?)
• bouncy balls
• a sock
• and my personal favorite, a full-size Lady Speed Stick deodorant, minus the lid (I had found that lid and wondered where on earth my deodorant could be)

One toilet was actually beyond repair, as it was damaged trying to get all the stuff out.  So we got a new one of those. 

We lived through that weekend, certain this habit couldn’t get any worse.  We purchased toilet lid locks for all the bathrooms.  Harper was in the throws of potty training and had tons of accidents, as he couldn’t undo the toilet locks.  Oh well, it was the price we paid to have indoor plumbing.  And things were calm, for a short while…

We became more and more lax with the toilet locks.  It was promising that perhaps he had outgrown this.  He did start normal toilet playing, but not so much with the flushing.  In our main level bathroom, right off the kitchen, I would find little toilet treats.  One day an orange, one day a teacup.  One day it was loaded with dirty clothes.  He even explained that one to me.  He was doing laundry  – just like Mom.  The washer is directly across from the bathroom and that made sense.  My friend Pam came by one day to bring some stampin stuff and asked if she could use the bathroom.  I heard a squeal and then a laugh.  She summoned me to the bathroom where I found a plastic sword and a full-size (about a foot and half tall) Nutcracker doll in the potty.  Like I said, at least he’s creative. 

When we did use the toilet locks, we found them floating in the potty.  It’s similar to those child-proof caps on bottles, you know, the ones only kids can open.  But the flushing didn’t continue, at least that we knew about.  There was a time or two when we heard a flush and little feet running, but it was usually just some toilet paper or a legit attempt at just watching the potty flush.  The Bradster was just laying low.  He wasn’t done. 

Next time, my toilet was the first to go.  Since the items are flushed over a period of time, it’s a gradual effect.  It isn’t really noticed so much until it accumulates.  So one day, my toilet is moving kind of slow and I plunge.  Doesn’t really do much good.  Still flushes, but slowly.  I went to talk to Steve about it and when I came back, I found Brady.  He was stark naked, flushing away! The toilet had filled to the top (luckily, with clean water) and was overflowing onto the floor!  It was dripping all over him and he was in sheer delight!  He had his little hands on the plunger and was stirring the potty like a witch’s cauldron.  Of course I was mad, but he was cackling and giggling and okay, it was funny.  So we clean up the bathroom, bathe the kiddo and start all over again. 

Steve tried to snake that toilet.  Amazingly or stupidly, take your pick, we still aren’t really suspecting Brady.  That is, until we heard another flush.  Here we are, trying to fix the one toilet down, and we hear another flush, then running.  He was out of control!  I found the kids’ bathroom still swiriling, and you guessed up, not flushing correctly.  Treating children humanely was about to be an over-rated concept.  But he had disappeared and here we were working on the toilet, so I just tried to calm down.  How dumb am I?  Yep, he got toilet number 3 in the downstairs basement playroom whilest we were working on the ones upstairs.  I made a mental note to put an add for a cute toddler up for adoption in the paper asap.  I was too tired to battle, as I still had to sleep and work that night. 

Steve’s new-found plumbing expertise served him well.  Bubba, as we call Steve’s big and only brother, came to help.  As I slept on that Sunday, I remember that every time I woke up, I saw Steve with a toilet in his hands.  One toilet was repaired and two more were replaced that day.  Nice, we have all new toilets now.  Thanks, Brady.  The flavor of this incident was Little People and bouncy balls – tons of them.  He was apparently more desperate and in a hurry this time, and just flushed what was handy.  Note to all parents:  the shape of Little People makes them go down easy – and stay stuck there! 

After that incident, we had  learned our lesson.  All bathrooms were officially locked.  If you were of potty-trained age, you received a butter knife with which to pick the lock.  Even Harper adjusted —  we taught our then 4-year old how to get the lock open.  Life skills 101. 

Either that or just maturity cured the flushing.  It cured it too well.  Brady hasn’t shown any interest in flushing ANYTHING since we we broke him.  This includes those necessary things like poo-poo and pee-pee.  No interest whatsoever.  He’ll go over in the corner and grunt and insist he’s not pooping.  He then comes out and says, “change my poo-poo.”  We’ve promised treats and rewards and I’m pretty sure he’s big sister even promised a trip to Disneyworld.  Maybe he saw through that one, but NO reward was enough to make him interested.  He could state to us that Poo-poo and pee-pee go in the potty, but he wouldn’t put it there.  When we asked if he would go in the potty, his reply was, “No, I not.”  His pre-school reports included a potty record.  They try to take all the kids several times a day, even those that aren’t yet potty trained.  In all the little potty blanks, Brady’s paper simply read “refused.”  And the former Flusher kept refusing. 

The wheels of change started turning on Valentine’s Day.  My Aunt Nancy and cousin Rachel visited and brought goodies.  Brady’s treat was a 3-pack of what he likes to call “Fuper Man panties.”  Translated, that’s Super Man briefs.  He’s got two big sisters he spends a lot of time with and he has chosen to call all underwear, even male underwear, panties.  His father his thrilled, especially when we try to correct Brady and he says, “Daddy wears panties.”  We decided  if it kept him interested, he could call them whatever he wanted. 

He put all 3 pairs of “Fuper” man on during Valentine’s dinner.  He loved them!  He even wore them backwards so he could see the biggest image on the back.  He danced and shook his booty and was incredibly pleased with himself.  He even took a pair off and starting hitting Harper with them.  Using his lingo, we all caught ourselves saying, “Don’t hit your brother with your panties.”  Ah, good times.  Then, he wet through all 3 pairs of Fuperman.  We asked about the potty and he repeated “No, I not”.  I then repeated my stance and said “No potty, no panties“.  A phrase every mom dreams of telling her little boy, right?  So we thanked Aunt Nancy and she got to share in the excitement, but Valentine’s was not going to be the night. 

He has stayed interested in those “panties”, asking frequently if he could wear his Fupermans.  We’ve stuck to our guns.  No potty, no panties.  But at least there was still some interest.  Some spark of hope.  Something going on in his brain, if not yet in the potty.  I’ve always believed in the theory that they will potty train when they are ready.  For all of our kids, readiness has meant being trained within a week, or even as quick as a couple of days.  I’d have to wait for that and keep changing grotesque diapies until then. 

And in the midst of my depression-like Funk I’ve recently written about, God sends a miracle.  Of all weeks, Brady decides this is the week.  With Marlee leading the pack, and the encouragement of all the other kiddos, I’m told Brady did poo-poo and pee-pee both on the little potty while I was at work.  Hurrah!  A start!  He’s also the first one to use a little potty.  Everyone else went straight to the big one.  So, we spend a few days reveling in the glory that he really could do it.  I had started to wonder.  And then, on Wednesday morning, Mr. Brady brings me down his FuperMan panties and asks to wear them.  The other kids were on their way out the door to school.  I asked him to go to the potty and we’d see what we could do.  He brings the potty into the kitchen – the morning Grand Central Station – and announces “no look at me.”  Yes, come into the main room naked and ask everyone not to look.  We played along and turned our heads and yes!!! — pee pee in the potty!  He wore the panties until he lost interest a little later that day and I was tired of wet clothes.  Thursday, at pre-school, they sent word  home to come next time in underwear – he pottied all day long! 

And now, today, we’ve been potty-only since Thursday with NO accidents.  Once he made it to the bathroom, but not the toilet.  I didn’t count that against him.  And the world of panties has expanded.  Fuperman is still is favorite, but there’s also “FungBob Kware Pants” and cars, and insects, and too many choices.  In fact, I catching him changing when he’s dry, just to wear new ones.  Once again, whatever it takes.  He’s even awakened two mornings with a dry overnight diaper (we aren’t brave enough to try nightime just yet.)  He’s obsessed.  He goes to the potty every 10.5 minutes on the average.  Poo-poo is more like a rabbit – a pellet or so every few minutes.  We don’t care.  We are rejoicing!  Talk about a natural anti-depressant – light at the end of the tunnel.  Relief is in sight.  If we can potty-train Brady (or more like if he can potty train himself), this family can do ANYTHING! 

Not only does he potty, he flushes.  His previous flushing misbehavior has been replaced by the joy of watching the pee-pee and poo-poo go down.  Oh happy day!  The Flusher has redeemed himself.  He’s polite and charming about the whole thing. 

“You are doing so good, Brady”

“Thank you, Mommy, Yes I do!” 

“Yes I do”?  Did he just say “Yes , I do”?  This is Mr. “No I Not”, after all. 

But yes, yes he do.  Yes he did. Yes he is!  Brady has made the reform of all reforms.  He’s turned the corner just when we needed it most.  He’s more than redeemed himself, he’s put sunny skies back over the Houkhouse. 

Thank you, Brady!  You can go to college wearing “Fuperman panties” if you wish!