Potty Training... Day One

As is customary in every jungle, natives will come to reach an age where it becomes necessary for them to learn to relieve themselves in the nearest receptacle instead of their loin cloths. It is a process known in the western world as “potty training”.

For the elder native, potty training was a long, yet obtainable mission that all in all was not too treacherous. However, he had a desire to learn this new process. And even when stubbornness was encountered, a small prize or even a charting system to track progress was a welcomed and handy tool.

I suppose there was one small hiccup with the elder native. During his training it was summertime, so I thought it easiest to let him run sans lion cloth in the backyard of the jungle and allow him to “water the plants”.  For whatever reason he felt this process had to be performed without apparel of any kind. This was fine until I realized that every time he needed to relieve himself he would first strip off any and all clothing then run to the yard to “water the plants”. On the upside, we had our finest crop of tomatoes to date that year; however on the downside I feared I would have to send him to preschool with a potted plant and a thorough explanation as to why he had to get stark-naked and urinate on a bush in order to go potty.

(To be fair, the rulebook said they had to be potty-trained, it specified nothing about how, where, or what clothing needed to be on or off during such time so I figured we had a loop-hole)

Somehow I can see that getting the younger sibling on-board with this rite of passage will not be as easy. It’s going to be quite a long and messy winter here inside the jungle.