One thing you should know about Liam is that he suffers from multiple personality disorder. Among the roughly 37 that we have documented, there are two overriding personalities under which all the others fall. There is Han Solo Liam and there is Dynamic Duo Liam. Solo Liam is way cool, laid back, chilled out, melllllloooow. He listens to Dark Side of the Moon and drives a VW Bus to preschool. Duo Liam is an angsty, whiny, control freak. He drinks way too much coffee and flosses with barbed wire. The difference between the two? The absence/presence of Liam’s perpetually airborne little brother, Nate. (The other little brother, the 20 lb. eating machine called Sam, does not have this effect on Liam. Yet.)

In addition to the assholish behavior mentioned above, Duo Liam also thrives on excluding Nate from things. Bill and I have been making it a point to take the boys out with us separately so that they can spread their turkey wings a little. They’re silly outings, errands really…Safeway, CVS, Wal-Mart. But even more than the adventure, Liam loves telling me about how Nate isn’t with us. ”Just Weem and Mum-Mum are going! Not Nate. Nate’s not going. Just Weem!” He’ll roll around in the idea and scrub the words all over himself again and again. He had a similar reaction last week when I tried explaining to the boys the importance of cooperation, especially during the day when the ratio of crazy parent to crazy kid is 1:3. “We need to help each other and work as a team. OK? Do you think you can do that for Mummy?” Nate beamed his sunny little face my way while Liam crossed his arms over his chest and said, “NO! No Nate is team! Just Weem is team!!” Um-hmm. There’s no L’i'am in ‘team,’ apparently.

So, when we took away Liam’s diapers cold turkey yesterday and began potty training, I used his love of excluding Nate to make the potty look like a delicious indulgence that NATE CAN’T HAVE! And, yes, I did consider the dozen or so ways this manipulation might come back to kick me in the junk in the future. But, having exhausted all logical arguments for not crapping your pants, I opted for the unconventional approach. ”The potty is just for Liam. Not Nate. Nate’s not potty trained like Liam will be.” And, it TOTALLY FREAKIN’ WORKED!

However, while my deception was well crafted and thorough, I failed to be specific enough in my instruction. What I said was, “I have to put Nate down for his nap. I’ll be back in 10 minutes. If you need to poop while Mum-Mum is gone, please try to put your poop in the potty.” What I should have said was, “I have to put Nate down for his nap. I’ll be back in 10 minutes. If you need to poop while Mum-Mum is gone, please try to put your poop in the potty…and if you do? LEAVE! IT! THERE!” 

So subdued for one who just dipped his toys in a shit fondue pot.

…dipped his toys and his leg.

W! WTF!

I think this ‘Little People’ was supposed to be holding #2. 

It was almost worth the gagging to say, ”EAT SHIT, ELMO!!”