My two year old is standing on a stool playing with the light switches and he gives a half-hearted “ahhh!” every time the constructions workers tearing up the sidewalk outside make an especially loud noise. It’s raining a lot today, which I admit I love, being the displaced Oregonian that I am, but it’s too bad it’s raining just at this moment because when I gave the two year old a hug and caught a whiff of his poopy diaper it smelled so bad I had to walk in the other room to keep from throwing up. So now I’m sitting in the other room while he happily, poopily, plays with the light switches and I’m typing and peeking out the window at our wet deck kind of wishing it wasn’t raining so I could take him outside to change him instead of opening up a stink bomb inside the house. And, bonus, if I change him outside and still throw up at least, ya know, it’d be outside.

In other diaper news, I bought him some pull-ups the other day. Not because I have any real hope of potty training him anytime soon, but because the size 6 diapers are now getting too tight on him and the only size up from there is pull-ups. Our skinny daughter only ever made it up to size 4 in diapers before she potty trained somewhere around the age of 2 1/2 and I remember thinking back in those days, when I passed the size 6 diapers at the store, that probably only terribly inadequate mothers who were too lazy to potty train their children would ever keep buying diapers that long. Or, ya know, maybe if they had really fat babies. Our daughter has always been pretty trim, even as a toddler, and she was my first, so I was oblivious.

Now, with a regular size little boy wearing size 6 diapers (but who’s really more comfortable in pull-ups), I think it goes without saying that I take it all back. And not only that, but I fully own up to being that parent that’s putting forth zero effort to potty train him because, listen, potty training is the worst. It’s way more of a mess than changing diapers. You never fully appreciate how convenient it is that your child can “go” anywhere until you’ve got a grocery cart full of perishables and you’re exactly as far away from the store restroom as you can be when your potty-training child tells you they need to pee, which of course sends you into a panic because nobody wants to have to tell the store clerk why there’s a puddle on the floor of the baking aisle.

So you high tail it over to the restroom and park your cart by the nearest cashier, pointing to the child you’re trying to unbuckle as quickly as possible by way of an excuse, awkwardly chuckle, and then sprint to the bathroom only to find that all the toilets are automatic “robot potties” which your child is understandably terrified of and suddenly loses the need to go at all. But it’s not like you want to repeat this ordeal, so you half coax/have coerce them into sitting on the potty anyway even though you both know they’ve already won this battle and there’s no way they’re gonna go. Then they want to wash their hands which is a pain, but not something you want to discourage because: hygiene. So you basically hold them on your lap while you stand-squat in front of the sink and do your best to rub soap and water all over and finally finish off the whole ordeal by telling them to just dry their hands on their shirt because, yes, it looks like there’s a paper towel dispenser there, but it’s empty because the store has since upgraded to the eco-friendly air dryers that have been successfully scaring all potty training children since 2007.

It’s endurable. Part of the price you pay for not having to buy diapers for the rest of eternity. A fair deal. But somewhere around parking the cart next to the same cashier for the third or fourth time who was once smiling understandingly at you but is now giving you sideways glances you blurt out something like, “HA HA FALSE ALARM!” and hope your shopping doesn’t happen to coincide with that particular cashier’s work schedule pretty much ever again.

That said, I bought some pull-ups for my completely non-potty training child the other day and if you’re wondering, they fit him great. Aaaaaand noIstillhaven’tchangedhispoopydiaperyet.