Potty Training Seats

We're quickly approaching the point of ditching the diapers with our dear Grace. She was pretty well potty trained when we got her in China, but we didn't finish the job then, so we need to now. It's a little embarrassing when your kid squats down and makes a "pooh" sound with her lips in the middle of a shopping center.

One of the many dilemmas with Grace's potty training is that she refuses to sit on the toilet without a training seat of some sort installed. Upstairs it's a little puffy seat with some Sesame Street characters; downstairs it's a plain plastic seat with a little plastic guard on the front for keeping boys from hosing down the wallpaper while seated.

I'm fine with her using these, and I understand Grace's fear of falling into the bowl (a problem I never had, since my rear was larger than the toilet seat by the time I entered Kindergarten.) My issue is that when I need to make a quick visit to the bathroom in our house, I have to maneuver around these blasted training seats. (And no, I'm not talking about when I need to take a seat. That would be a fate that the poor Sesame Street characters don't deserve.)

My initial thought is to just leave the training seat in place, as I really don't like picking the seat up and moving it. (Frequently the undersides of these things look a little too truck stop for my tastes.) The only problem is that the toilet is now a little bit like those hoops at the carnival. You know the ones -- they're just big enough to put a basketball through, but they're definitely not regulation. This is what happens with the toilet. Suddenly I've got a real challenge on my hands. (And let's not talk about what happens when nature calls in the middle of the night. Poor little Big Bird and Elmo get hit with an occasional monsoon.)

To make matters worse, Grant is now asking for me to teach him how to go while standing up. It's hard enough to get Grant to stand still for ANYTHING, but if he has to stand still AND have good aim, we might as well give up now and install one of those stainless steel "walls 'o wee wee" like they have in stadiums. The cleanup would be easier.