Potty, what?

Recently, Eamon has developed a strange habit in which he inserts the word “What” after many words or phrases. For example:

MOMMY: Eamon, let’s put on your Captain America shirt.
EAMON: Cappin Merka, what?

MOMMY: Eamon, were you being facetious?
EAMON: Eamon feshus, what?

On paper, it looks dignified, rather like the genteel speech of a nineteenth century English nobleman.

In reality, he sounds more like Dave Chappelle's impression of Lil Jon.

(For those of you who do not know Lil Jon, Wikipedia tells us that he is an American rapper, music producer, and entrepreneur known for the genres hip hop and crunk. In the words of Eamon: “Crunk, what?” So while Mr. Lil John has been successful in his own right, those of you who have heard him speak know that he is perhaps not the most articulate of all celebrities).

Whenever Eamon does not understand something someone says, he dutifully repeats it in his quest to tame the English language, but always adds the “what” afterwards.

Unfortunately, being so young, there are a lot of things that he doesn’t really understand.

One of them is the potty.

Eamon has a potty. A cool little brightly-colored Elmo potty. It has a button on the front that you can push to hear encouragement from Elmo, and it lives in our upstairs bathroom.

Eamon uses it to store his dinosaurs.

Sometimes, he sits on it. He insists on being stripped down to his birthday suit, then sits on the potty, proud as can be, until about five minutes later he gets bored and gets off. At no point does he actually, well, use the potty. To him, it’s just a decorative chair for naked relaxation time.

I feel kind of bad for Eamon because, as smart as he is, he just doesn't get it. I don’t think he even knows when he has to go pee, as he looks rather shocked and amazed whenever he accidentally starts peeing in the shower. He has told us that he doesn’t want to wear diapers anymore, but has yet to understand the connection to using the potty. He might be emotionally ready to stop wearing diapers, but he is nowhere near physically or intellectually ready to start using the potty.

But yesterday, Eamon got to see his cousin Lucas. Lucas is a Big Boy, three months older than Eamon, and is potty-training and doing a great job with it. Lucas is Proud to Be Diaper Free. While poor Eamon had to sit through the indignity of having a stinky diaper changed in front of a handful of family members, Lucas could toddle off to the privacy of a bathroom to take care of his personal business.

I think this might have inspired Eamon. At least, I’m hoping that’s what inspired Eamon during this morning’s episode:

MOMMY: (entering Eamon’s room, immediately smelling a stinky diaper) Eamon, did you go stinky?
EAMON: Yes. Mommy, hands. Hands all dirty! (Shows Mommy his hands)
M: Why are your hands so dirty? What did you…oh no.
E: (confidently) Eamon go stinky. Eamon change diaper. Eamon help.
M: (spluttering) But there’s poop…oh my gosh…Eamon…it’s EVERYWHERE.
E: (not as confidently) Eamon change diaper. Eamon…help?
M: Oh my gosh…

We stripped the bed. We stripped the kid. And you can’t get mad because…he was trying to Help. He was trying to take The Next Step.

He was trying to be a Big Boy. But he just doesn’t get it.

Potty, what? Sigh.

Someday, kid. Someday.