Best Of Blockhead: I'm Such A Potty Mouth (January 9th 2008)

Everyone seems to be talking potty training lately. Weird Girl has been trying for some time now with mixed results:

"Wednesday - almost all day successful tinkling in the pot when I took him in.  I think there was a turning point when, at one point, he started to go on the floor and he shut that valve off and walked to the potty instead! Yeah, baby!  However, I did/do have to remind him to go.  He wouldn't tell me when he had to pee."

It's no secret that after 22 months of changing dirty diapers, I still can't stand the smell and regularly pull my shirt over my nose choosing the smell of my own BO over what I'm about to be wrist deep in. This is such a predictable habit that if I don't do it Fred starts pulling my shirt up to my face for me. Still even though diapers aren't cheap and supposedly it's every parents dream come true the first time they make it out of Target without having to fork over $30 bucks for them, I think I may prefer diapers when compared to the alternative.
Lucy bought Fred a potty (or poop bucket as I like to call it) for Christmas for a number of reasons. The first being that he now can be seen entering a room with a fresh diaper in hand saying "My boot. My boot." on a regular basis. The second reason is he's moved up at the Hill and his new teacher insists he'll be potty trained in 6 months. Now they did say this was an option, but everyone else is learning and we can't very well expect him to use a potty at school and a diaper at home just because we don't want to clean out the bucket. I have a cat, which means I already have one poop bucket to clean and I think 2 may be over my "Poop-Buckets-To-Clean" quota.
Another thing that has got me stumped is how are we supposed to know when he has to go? Let's face it, I forget to go sometimes and I've been practicing for 30 years. That's why I keep that "Cleanest and Most Convenient Bathrooms In Town" map in my head. No matter where we go I always know where a good potty is just in case I have an emergency. It's not like he says "Hey! I'm about to wet myself!!!" Letting us know after the fact is great, but should we just pull his pants off and stake out the potty just in case? And if that's the answer, what if we get the origin of exit wrong?
I can just hear myself discussing the previous nights events with the folks at work the next day:
"Did you see The Biggest Loser last night?"
"Nope"
"That guy almost won a million bucks on Deal or No Deal"
"Missed it"
"What was the score of the game?"
"Didn't see it."
"So I guess ya'll rented movies?"
"Not exactly"
"So what did you do?"
"We spent a cozy night in the bathroom huddled around a plastic toilet looking for signs on Fred's face that could give us a clue as to whether or not he's about to go #1 or #2."
"Oh.um how did that work out for you?"
"Not so great. We are hoping the cat will have better luck teaching him to use the litter box."