#2's a crowd

We are slowly but surely making progress on the potty training front. I had hoped Amelia would be fully trained by now. Then again, I had hoped I'd grow to 6'2". You don't always get what you want. That said, as much as I am anxiously awaiting swimming in the pools of money I'll save when I can stop buying Pull Ups, this little kid on the potty thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. Allow me to paint a picture of what my life has become...

As a father, I have an obligation to do all I can to get Amelia to use the potty. The issue here is she will only use the potty if you go in the bathroom with her and stand there. My downstairs bathroom, which she uses 90% of the time, is roughly the size of a double-wide coffin. As a matter of fact, a recent guest used the bathroom and then decided to wash their hands in the kitchen instead because it was "too claustrophobic" in there. Thus, Amelia essentially demands you stand knee to knee with her while she's on the throne. Additionally, she has a fully non-negotiable clause which stipulates the door must not only be closed, but locked. She claims she needs "privacy" (seemingly completely disregarding the fact that there is another human roughly 14cms from her). Given all this, I found myself in a bad situation today. We walked into the bathroom, she sat down as I locked the door. After grabbing the handle to ensure there was no escape, she shot me a look that clearly stated "buckle up, buttercup, we're in this together now". And with that, she proceeded to relentlessly defile that poor toilet. I kid you not, there were sounds coming from that bathroom that have not been heard since the Smoke Monster on Lost. I haven't gone through boot camp or anything, but I'm pretty sure this was similar to the gas mask drills. There were fumes everywhere. My eyes were watering. My nose began to run. I weakly reached up to turn on the fan just before my knees buckled. Unfortunately, this attempt was to be completely shot down. Apparently, to go with the tight space, the locked door, and the sound display, we were not to have a fan. There would be no circulation of air. I guess we were just to sit there and drink in this experience. By the time she was done, I'm pretty sure Sophie had attempted to dial 911 on my cell phone. I'm not sure, as I had already blacked out into a puddle of cold sweat. I figured my only hope for survival was to begin repeatedly flushing the toilet while throwing Amelia into the sink to hose off. However, as I pulled myself up from the floor, I saw Amelia sitting there beaming with pride. She had use the potty like a big girl. At that point, I decided I needed to suck it up, disinfect the area, and treat her like she just cured cancer...and to pray I'm not the only one home the next time she has to go #2.