Potty parties

Boys seem to have a perennial fascination with bodily functions--or is it just me? This has led to a preoccupation with being able to flush the potty, and careful dividing of the privilege so that all get their turns to flush. Especially when there is something exciting to flush!

This afternoon Seth went potty, advertising to all concerned that he was going to "make guckies." Skyler peered excitedly into the potty afterward and announced, "There are no guckies!"

"He probably just had gas," I explained.

"Oh. Can I fwush the gas?"

~~~~~

A couple of weeks ago I had a brilliant idea for how to maximize the boys' interests and use them to facilitate learning. I gathered all of our homeschool boys (5 of them, ages 1-3) in the bathroom with some food coloring and demonstrated how the water goes from the back of the potty into the bowl. We put a couple of drops in the back of the toilet, flushed and oohed and aahed at the glorious blue water. Then we added a couple of drops of red food coloring and transformed the potty water into purple. Another flush and we were on our way to making green! The results were thrilling to all concerned, and the boys did seem to understand the concepts (both of how the potty works and how different colors mix to make other colors).

Problems: I discovered food coloring needs a little stirring to mix well. Just what I wanted, to teach them to stick things into the potty to stir....And of course, I didn't think about all of them begging to put food coloring into the potty for days afterward every time they used it.