SmashMouth

A few weeks ago, my husband and I rolled up the living room rug. We bought 12 tiny pairs of underwear. We set up a miniature potty, complete with a handle and flushing sounds, in the bathroom.

In other words, we officially started potty-training our daughter, CC.

If you’re a parent of a toddler, chances are you’ve heard of the popular parenting book, “Oh Crap! Potty Training.” The book advocates for ditching diapers all at once instead of transitioning to Pull-Ups or gradually using less diapers over time. The author walks readers through how to turn houses into potty training boot camps, and she demands at least a solid week dedicated to keeping little bathroom recruits at home.

Clear your social calendar, the book says, and let your kid go commando!

My friend lent me her copy of the book, and I read it from cover to cover. But besides the obvious hurdle this creates for working parents – I ended up taking two days off from work – something soon became clear: This author has never lived in New Orleans.

My husband and I are transplants in this city, so Thanksgiving and Christmas involve long car rides or flights to see our families, who live out of state. We picked October to start this bathroom experiment with CC since it would give us some breathing room before we had to start traveling for the holidays.

Or so we thought.

The entire month of October is Halloween season in this city, and staying home meant missing fall festivals, decked out houses and trick-or-treating.

Or, we could go to all of these things, but risk pee on the floor in public.

I’m not strong. We lasted about a week before running to CVS for Pull-Ups and looking ahead on the calendar for a better time to potty train.

But that’s the problem. There is no better time. There is no good time to potty train a kid in New Orleans.

November and December are difficult, thanks to traveling, Christmas in the Oaks, holiday teas, pictures with Santa and general festive chaos.

January through March are traditionally pretty quiet months for the rest of the country, but in New Orleans, everyone is ramping up for Mardi Gras.

Finding a place to change diapers along parade routes is painful. The pressure of quickly finding a restroom for a toddler who says they have to use the bathroom NOW is torture.

Parents who wait until after Mardi Gras run into Jazz Fest. The bathroom situation is slightly better on the Fairgrounds than on the neutral ground. Just be prepared to carry around a toilet seat extender and to cram two people in a single port-a-potty.

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