Anyone know the shipping rate for New Zealand?

If you're on Facebook, you know that I loathe potty-training almost as much as the black ants who take over our kitchen every March. (And oh, how I do hate them.) I'm not sure it would be as despairing if we just knew Evan completely understood what we were asking of him, and stubbornly refused. Mule-headed-ness? I can take it. Downright I'm-not-gonna-do-it-and-you-can't-make-me refusal? I can deal with that, too. I have my methods. (More on those some other day.) But we are now 18 months into M&Ms, suckers, sticker charts, stuffed animals, super-cool big-boy underwear, outrageous dances in restaurant bathroom stalls, high fives and pretty much every other possible bribe short of a pony. (Which wouldn't work, anyway, because he already has a pony waiting for him at Grammy and Papaw's house.)

So we finally offered the Ultimate Bribe: "Cars." Personally, I wouldn't mind having this movie for myself, but that's beside the point. The point is, my parents have it; Evan wants it. Really, really wants it. I made a sticker chart for just this purpose a few months ago (thanks for the idea, Sid the Science Kid), with the short explanation that every time Evan used the potty, he'd get a sticker for the chart, and at the end of such-and-such a time, we would buy "Cars" for our very own. (I even tracked down mini "Cars" stickers.) This worked for about a week, before Evan stuck fast in a "no potty" strike. So we backed off, and within a few days he came back to it, like a boomerang.

Then we moved on to rubber stamps--you know, the little stamps you rub on an ink pad. This past fall, Evan came home from preschool one day with a star inked on his hand, and he was so proud of it; he couldn't stop showing it off to me, Nate, and Brenda, our favorite deli counter lady at SuperTarget. So it was a (in the words of Lightning McQueen) "Ka-chow!" moment when I found a set of 12 stamps--boats, trucks, trains, buses, bikes, every mode of transportation Evan adores--at the Mass Ave Toy Store. Let me tell you, I congratulated myself for this brilliant idea all the way home. Except the first time I gave Evan a stamp, I used his hand...then realized I still had to wash his hands. Genius, no? So we moved to the forearm. But now the ink is well, too...inky, no matter how lightly I press on the stamp. A school bus stamp on the arm spreads and morphs into what looks like a gigantic black bruise (hello, child protective services) within three minutes.

So yesterday we started using stickers again, only Evan now wants them affixed to his body, not the sticker chart. As I placed Mack and Lightning McQueen on his arms last night (both hands were covered with stickers from Trader Joe's), and stamped both feet (do social workers look at feet?) with a motorcycle and a train, I suddenly had the image of Evan covered in enough stamps--postage and passport-style--to travel to New Zealand, first class air. And as I threw yet another wet pull-up in the trash, I started to laugh. And then Evan started laughing, and we sat on the bathroom floor and laughed together. Yes, it's incredibly discouraging to get a whiff of something not quite right, and realize that once again, watching "Shaun the Sheep" took precedence over booking it down the hallway and emerging victorious.

There's just no way for me to really know if Evan understands the go-before-you're-soaked concept. Some kids with myotonic dystrophy have cognitive issues, some don't. Evan has such an excellent sense of music and comic timing--things that take a lot of brain power. And now that he's armed with the makings of general conversation, I don't think any wires have been crossed, so to speak, but I don't know. Whenever we have The Talk, he looks at me carefully, then slowly says, "Potty? Cars movie? Ohhhhhhhh!" to which I reply, "Yes! Isn't that an awesome deal?! If you go potty, and start telling me when you need to go, I will buy you the Cars movie!!" But two seconds later, he's wet and swears he's not. Sigh. So a few nights ago, I posted the "how-do-you-know-your-child-really-understands" question to a web site for people with myotonic dystrophy, and the replies weren't encouraging, to say the least. Many parents replied that their children are now in their teens or 20's, and are still not fully potty-trained. It just doesn't click for some kids. Not exactly the peppy "If at first you don't succeed" answer I was looking for, but I am determined to keep trying. Evan's still little, he's smart, he's eager to please seven--maybe eight--times out of 10, and I have enough stickers and ink to last us a very, very long while. In the meantime, if you see us out and we're covered in smudgy ink and sticker-ed from head to toe, give us a big high-five.