Category: Meaningful Memories

Race Potty: The 4th Stage of Potty Training

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First Rule of Race Potty: Don’t talk about Race Potty. Don’t sit your son down and tell him the pros and cons of doing it. Don’t analyze it with him in anyway. Second Rule of Race Potty: Don’t talk about Race Potty. If you decide to try it, just do it. Third Rule of Race Potty: Don’t talk about Race Potty. Just announce that it’s on. Say, “Race Potty!”, jump out of your couch and race him to the bathroom.  

As with all parents, we started with The Potty Chair and all the prescriptions laid out in parent guides to help us through the 1-3 stages of potty training. His mom had some experience with potty training, but she forgot most of it over the course of decades. So, we read some books on the subject, watched some YouTube videos, and sought advice from friends, family, and his physician. Their advice progressed us to stage four, an arbitrary description we’ve developed to describe the luxury boys have of urinating in the toilet while standing up. By completing the first three stages, our son was completely potty trained, except he preferred to sit. While standing to urinate is not a mandatory stage of child development, in general, or potty training, every man wants his son to take advantage of the biological luxury of standing while peeing. As such, the focus of this article will be limited to the fourth stage of potty training procedures for males.

The three of us found ourselves so mired in this agonizingly repetitious stage that we felt helpless. Our son knew what to do, how to do it, and when, but he just couldn’t put them altogether. 

One of the best ways to teach a two-to-three-year-old anything complex is to talk to them. The more we talk to them, the more they understand. They probably won’t understand 3/4ths of what we’re saying, but it might be a tone that suggests that there are reasons for everything we do, and it might help lay the foundation with them. Regardless our approach, parents are going to make a ton of mistakes, and the best antidote to making mistakes is time. If we spend enough time with your child, and talk to them while we’re there, we’ll round off the corners of any mistakes we make. In these areas, it doesn’t hurt to try to sympathize with our child. We might try to empathize, but we can’t remember how difficult it was to learn all of this at once. If we take a step back and think about how overwhelming learning this overflow of information must be, in such a small space, it might help us relate to them better and focus our lesson plans. My lesson plan has always been to KISS (Keep It Simple and Silly) it. I probably overestimate and underestimate him, alternately, three times a day, but I don’t obsess about that near as much as other parents do. I correct myself accordingly, and I try to keep his learning grade gradual.  

We don’t need to talk about everything though. Some matters require tactical maneuvers through the maze of their limited psychology, and any discussion of such tactics only undermines whatever results they might achieve. Even when they get disappointed by losing the
Potty Race, don’t say, “I’m only doing this because we are desperate to find something to aid you in this stage of potty training.” By keeping my intentions unspoken, I might have overestimated my two-to-three-year-old, but I thought if I discussed it, he might see Race Potty as the tactic it was. 

After we successfully completed those mandatory stages, we began whooping and hollering, and plying him with the treats experts prescribe. Our enthusiasm was genuine, because it was exciting to watch the learning process. He wanted to learn, he wanted to succeed, and he showed how much it meant to him by celebrating his accomplishment with us. A problem arose in stage four. He stood once, and a microscopic amount fell out. When he was done he was done, he thought he was done. It was one of the best days of his young life, and he hadn’t heard such praise since he first learned how to talk and walk.   

“What an accomplishment, am I right?” his beaming-with-pride expression said. “I’ll be honest with you guys, I’m glad that’s over, so I can go back to the more comfortable routine of sitting down when I go.” 

If you have a child, you know this reaction well. You spend countless hours repeating the process in the hopes that you might eventually help him establish some sort of routine. You don’t expect instant success, and you learn how vital patience is in stage four, but at some point you reach the “He isn’t getting it, and I’m not sure he ever will” level of frustration. You don’t show your disappointment to him, and you don’t say it to anyone but your spouse, but you feel it. The repetition becomes second nature to him, but he has his fallbacks. Those stuck in this stage also know the shrug you get from friends, family, and physicians when their advice doesn’t work, “Every kid is different. What do you want me to say?”   

I don’t know how to potty train your child, and you don’t know how to potty train mine. No one knows. It’s a guessing game. Did my guess work, or did I use it at a time when he was finally ready to learn and anything would’ve worked at that point? I don’t know, you don’t know. So the next time an author writes a piece, such as this one, and they suggest they’ve discovered the foolproof, take it to the bank, works every time method of potty training, symbolically place it in the trash bin right next to the heaping pile of diapers you’ve accrued since you started employing their method.

Is it about stubbornness, intelligence, or some sort of behavioral issue? We don’t know, because every kid is different. Every complex, little brain full of mush tackles complex tasks in such unique, individualistic ways that one of the best methods involves learning what makes your child tick. What makes him smile with pride? My little fella showed an ambitious nature pretty early on, and to try to turn the repetition into routine, I keyed in on my son’s competitive nature. I found a trick that might only apply to my son, but it worked so well for us that my wife began dropping it at work to parents who were having their own trouble with their kids in stage four. 

Prior to Race Potty, we tried everything. We went nuts on the microscopic dribbles that fell into the water. We tried standing him in front of the toilet for an extended period of time. We tried having him watch me so often that we hoped something might click. It didn’t. A friend of ours suggested putting Froot Loops in the water and telling him to sink them. That seemed like a fantastic idea. It sounded fun. I showed him how. He cheered me on. He told me what colors he wanted me to sink. “Why don’t you try to sink a few?” I asked him. He gave me a devilish grin that led me to believe he was in on my dastardly plan. He wasn’t. Nothing worked, until I developed Race Potty.

It plays out like this. It’s potty time. You know it, and he knows it, but he doesn’t know what to do with it. “Potty time!” you yell spontaneously, the more spontaneous the better, and you race him to the bathroom. He’s running with you, but he doesn’t know why. The only thing he knows is he wants to do is win. Some parents might not want to do this, because they fear instilling or fostering a competitive nature in their son, but as I said my son was very competitive early on, and I encouraged that in every way I could. 

Race Potty is not a mean method, as you’ll read, but you do have to move past the nice stage. Being supportive and whooping and hollering work great in stages 1-3, but their effectiveness begins to wane in stage four. There are, however, some details of Potty Race that might make some parents squeamish. 

Once at the toilet, you have him whip it out with you, as we’ve done probably a hundred times before at this point. This time, however, you issue a challenge: “Let’s see who can hit the water first.” 

This is the point where some fathers might grow squeamish, for I prescribe a touchdown dance once victory is secured. The more obnoxious the better. Which touchdown dance is appropriate? For that answer, we might want to consult NFL rules. We should not get in the face of our child, for that might draw a taunting penalty, and we shouldn’t celebrate in groups. We also shouldn’t engage in a lewd dance, otherwise known as twerking. Most fathers don’t want to do a touchdown dance after beating their two-to-three-year-old son at anything. It feels weird, and you’re sure that some pointy-headed child psychologist will frown at you for doing such a thing, but there’s a reason you’re desperately stuck in stage four, and it has everything to do with that frustrating “Every kid is different” phrase. The touchdown celebration stokes the fire. 

He almost beat me on a Tuesday, but I refrained from celebrating his accomplishment. I celebrated mine instead. He was frustrated. It stoked his fire. It stoked his ire. On Wednesday, he came closer, and he was frustrated that I no longer celebrated him hitting the water.

When the pain of his disappointment hits us, our inclination is to soothe him. We might want to tell him that it’s just a game, or that you’re just joking around. My advice, change the subject. Don’t let him grow despondent, wallow in the misery of his frustration, or let him cry. Change the subject to something he beats you in. Do whatever you can to avoid negative connotations and build up his pride, but don’t give up the game, and don’t talk about Potty Race. Just do it. 

My patience and diligence paid off on Thursday, when he beat me, and it was glorious … for him. I feigned the agony of defeat. My inclination was to share the victory with him, but I refrained from doing so, knowing that I had to stoke that competitive fire to keep it bright orange. I was inconsolable in defeat, and he loved every minute of it. 

He was almost undefeated from that point forward, and whatever wounds he experienced in the early stages of Potty Race were healed. To show how healed they were, he would shout, “Potty Race!” and I would have to chase him down the hall to pointlessly try to defeat him.

He still sat to pee, particularly when I wasn’t around to race him, but the repetition of potty race eventually established the routine in ways my wife couldn’t believe.

She didn’t care for potty race when it began, of course, and she all but bit her tongue as I continued to employ it. She didn’t appreciate the philosophy behind it, the methodology, or the lack of results. She had particular disdain for the touchdown dances, as she didn’t see them as constructive. Potty Race did not work in the beginning, but what does with a two-to-three-year-old? “We’ve tried everything else,” I said. “I say we try something else.” She conceded the point, but I could tell she didn’t think my idea would ever work, until it did. She’s such a convert now that she’s spreading the gospel even though I told her you don’t talk about Potty Race. 

The Strange Days of a Small Town Sheriff III: “He Was a Real Sonofabitch”

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“I finally shot the sonofabitch,” a Ms. Haith informed the dispatch operator of the sheriff’s office that day. After discussing the preliminary details of her call, the operator got on the radio to direct Sheriff Dan Anderson to the Haith home. Ms. Haith said the sonofabitch, in question, happened to be her husband Mr. Haith.

“Even though I knew the residents of the Haith home after all of the calls the two of them made,” Sheriff Dan Anderson said, “I knew enough to know that you never know how such scenes might play out. So, I drove onto this woman’s estate prepared for anything. When I saw the wife sitting on her porch in a porch swing, I couldn’t see anything that would cause greater suspicion on the scene, so I exited the patrol car.

“We received a call of an incident,” Dan called out to Ms. Haith from the outskirts of her property. “Do you mind if I enter your property?”

“That’s fine,” she said. “The rifle is over there, in the corner of the porch.”

Sheriff Anderson said, “I entered the woman’s property, walked onto the porch and secured the rifle. I determined that the rifle had been recently fired.”

“My husband’s body is in the living room,” Ms. Haith said, mentioning her husband by name.

“I secured the body,” Dan said, “and I left the house to discuss the matter further with the wife.

“She informed me that her husband was violently abusive, which I already knew from previous calls, and that he had been throughout the course of their long marriage. She said that she decided that she wasn’t going to put up with the abuse anymore, and she said that she decided to end it.”

“The wife stood without further incident, and we handcuffed her. We then placed her in a jail cell, and we went back to the scene of the crime to examine the evidence for the case. With all of the preliminary evidence, some might consider collecting further evidence unnecessary in such a case. The wife signed a full confession after all. She provided a minute-by-minute recounting of all that had taken place that day, and she provided us a full backdrop for her motivation for doing what she did. The wife was very forthcoming, in other words, saying that she’d rather spend the rest of her life in jail than put up with another day enduring her husband’s abusive ways. Even though the evidence we had, prior to returning to the scene, was largely preliminary, I considered it my duty as a lawman to go back to the scene, no matter how open and shut I thought it was, to do my due diligence on the matter and collect every piece of evidence available.

“We determined that the rifle that had been sitting on the porch, was the rifle used in the incident,” he said. “We determined that it was her fingerprints on the gun. The husband’s fingerprints were on the gun too, but the nature of the wound suggested to us that it was not self-inflicted. All of the evidence we found, and gathered at the scene, suggested that the idea that anyone but the wife was the alleged shooter were remote.

“As her arresting officer, I was later called upon to sit in on the trial of her case. I was there to offer my testimony, if necessary, and any other character assessments of the wife and husband I might be called upon to make, should that be necessary. Again, I didn’t think any of this would be necessary, for we had a full confession, and such an overwhelming amount of evidence that I didn’t think this would be anything less than an open and shut case.

“Before the trial began, the wife’s defense lawyer asked the judge for a sidebar,” Dan said. “The judge agreed to this, and he invited the state’s lawyer, and me, to attend this sidebar.

“Before we begin your honor,” the defense’s lawyer says. “The defense would like to submit into evidence the idea that the accused had every reason to shoot her husband, because he was a real sonofabitch.”

“To this point in my career,” Dan said. “I attended hundreds of court cases. I’ve witnessed such a wide variety of claims of innocence that it would take months to document them. I’ve witnessed defense attorneys make insanity claims and temporary insanity claims. I thought I’d heard everything at that point in my career, but this defense was a new, and almost laughable. I’m serious, I almost laughed when the lawyer said that, because I couldn’t believe the lawyer asked for a sidebar to submit that claim to the judge.

“That was the beginning and the end of the defense lawyer’s submission to the judge, and presumably the only reason he asked for the side bar, and the judge turned to the state’s attorney, and me, to ask us if we had anything to add. We both said no, the judge ended the sidebar, and he ordered us back to our seat.

“I walked back to my seat and I did laugh a little. I snickered at what I considered defense so laughable that I wondered if the judge would declare a mistrial on the basis that the lawyer for the defense was incompetent, and that the wife would need a new lawyer.

“The defense has submitted the idea that the victim in this case of murder against the accused, was a real sonofabitch,” the judge stated. “Well, I knew the accused’s husband, and he was a real sonofabitch. Case dismissed.”

“You could’ve knocked me over with a feather,” Dan said. “As I said, I’ve worked so many cases, and sat in on so many trials that swung in a direction contrary to the evidence that I compiled, that I thought I was above being shocked at what can happen in a courtroom. This was beyond anything I ever witnessed. I just sat there with my mouth hanging open.

“After the trial, I thought about the husband, and I thought that even if the man was a real sonofabitch, he didn’t deserve to die for it. If this man physically assaulted his wife, he deserved jail time. If the wife feared that the abuse was escalating, and she feared for her life, I could see the judge being more lenient, or even dismissing the case based on the nature of that abuse. I could even see the courts dismissing a case against the wife if she physically assaulted the husband, and the court judged her assault to be retribution for the years of abuse. The idea that a judge could dismiss a murder not on the basis of years or abuse, but. on that basis that a man was deemed a disagreeable person, was unprecedented to my experience in such matters. I was a lawman who believed in the justice system, and I had had that belief tested throughout the years, but this dismissal shook my beliefs in the system to its core.

“I also thought about the man hours law enforcement officials put in to collecting evidence for a case. I thought about how what I believed to be either a corrupt, or incompetent, judge can undermine those efforts and our beliefs in a fair and blind justice system in such a manner that it makes one question everything they do in the aftermath. I didn’t let it affect how I conducted myself on the job, going forward. You can only control what you can control, I thought, but one cannot involve themselves in such a bizarre case without being affected by it.”

*This story was used with permission.

Strange Days of a Small Town Sheriff I: “I Want to Kill Someone!”

The Strange Days of a Small Town Sheriff II: “Is He Dead?”

The Strange Days of a Small Town Sheriff II: “Is He Dead?”

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“We immediately discovered the headless torso of a young male lying in the middle of the road when we arrived on the scene, but we were unable to find the head,” Sheriff Dan Anderson began. “We searched the radius around the body, and we searched out in concentric circles, until we found it about a half a block away from the body. There were no signs of struggle, or any activity around the body, on the shoulder, or on the highway. There were no signs of activity on the road that would indicate that a car accident, or a hit and run, occurred. There were also no preliminary indications suggesting that the body was not moved or dumped there, so we widened our search out for any signs of activity that would lead to a decapitation out in the middle of a lonely stretch of highway. We were unable to find any answers. It was an unforgettable scene, even to a lawman of my tenure at the time.

“After we decided that the evidence at the scene would not further our investigation, I made the call that every lawman regrets having to make,” Sheriff Dan Anderson continued. “I called the man’s wife to inform her of the incident. When the wife answered the phone, I informed her that her husband was involved in an accident, and that I needed her to come out to this lonely stretch of highway to meet me there, so we could discuss the matter further. We did not relay such information over the phone. We either drove over to their homes to deliver such information face to face, so we could console them in their time of need, or we asked them to drive to the scene of the accident. This scene was such a mystery to us that we wanted her to drive to the scene, and we were going to tell her to make sure she had some family members with her, but she cut us off. We were also going give her directions to this stretch of highway, but she cut us off.

“Is he dead?” she asked, cutting us off.

“Your husband was involved in an accident,” Sheriff Anderson said. “I began telling her where we were on this highway again, and I prepared to give her the directions to this location again, when she cut me off a second time.”

“Is he dead?” She repeated this with a sense of urgency that I believed contained her desire to cut through what she might have perceived to be the painful details of a matter that might further shock her. My experience in such matters is that when a sheriff calls a home, most people fear the worst, and they don’t want to flirt with the possibility of a worst-case scenario on their drive over. They think that they will be better able to deal with such matters better if they can have those fears confirmed as soon as possible. I have not found that to be the case. I have found that most people need immediate comfort at such a moment in their lives. Most people need to call close friends or family members, to drive them to the location, so that they can share that grief with a loved one.

“I started to tell her that’s what I wanted her to do,” Dan said, “but I didn’t get halfway through that sentence when she cut me off a third time with her, ‘Is he dead?’ question.

“Yes ma’am,” Sheriff Anderson said, breaking protocol. “It appears that your husband met an untimely demise at the side of a highway.“ I also informed her that with the details available to me, at the scene, that I was not able to report to her the nature of the incident that led to his demise.”

“I can tell you what happened,” she said. “I can tell you exactly what happened. That sonofabitch would not leave me alone. He was always on me about such stupid stuff, and I told him. I said, “Not tonight.” I warned him that this was not the night to be on me. He said he wasn’t going nowhere, and I told him I wasn’t going to put up with it no more. I got in my truck to take off, and he up and jumps into my truck bed, saying, ‘I ain’t leaving.’ I tell him he is, and he says he ain’t, so I tell him he is. “One way or another you’re leaving, and I drove down the road as fast as I could, and I swerved to the left and right, and he held on, until left … the hard way.”

“With that new information in mind,” Dan said. “I walked up the lonely stretch of highway to find a highway sign bent at the corner. The logistics suggested that when the wife took a sharp turn at one point in the highway, at a high rate of speed, the husband maintained his hold on the trackbed, but he was thrown so hard to the right that his head was sticking out at just such an angle that it caught the roadside sign, and his neck met with the corner of a roadside sign in such a manner that it led to his decapitation.

“The reason I remember this case, to this day, has less to do with the sad and horrific details of it,” Sheriff Dan continued, “and more to do with this woman’s callous reaction to the news of her husband’s death. The two of them were obviously in the midst of a heated argument when the incident occurred, so one could argue that she asked her question as a result of the flurry of emotions she experienced as a result of that argument. Our follow up investigation suggested that the incident occurred hours prior, as much as four, before an uninvolved motorist saw the body and called into dispatch. That was more than enough time for her flurry of emotions to subside, in my opinion. She told me what that argument was about, and how heated it was, but their fight didn’t become physical, and she didn’t try to escape him in fear for her life.  

Was her reaction the result of a flurry of emotions she still felt regarding the argument she had with her husband? Was the reaction fueled by some sense of remorse she had over what she did? My instinct was to discount remorse, as she didn’t sound remorseful, but remorse takes many forms. I couldn’t answer those questions, and I still can’t, as I don’t know what was in her head, but my experience, while working in that particular county in Arkansas, suggested that her reaction to the news of her husband’s demise was characteristic of the people in that Arkansas county. My experience with the residents of this county suggested to me that these people don’t value life in the manner the rest of us do. This wasn’t the only example of the experiences I had with this characteristic in this county, but it was one of the more brazen. I didn’t witness such uniform callousness in Kansas, in Phoenix, or in any of the locations I’ve worked throughout my career. It would define for me,” Dan said of his characterization, “how I would work in this county, and it happened early on in my tenure there.”

*This story was used with permission.

Strange Days of a Small Town Sheriff I: “I Want to Kill Someone!”

The Strange Days of a Small Town Sheriff III: He was a Real Sonofabitch