Against the advice of well-meaning family and friends, mom started Elimination Communication with me when I was six months old after reading the New York Times article A Fast Track to Toilet Training for Those at the Crawling Stageand further researching the concept. "It's not really about 'training your child' it's about training you," claimed nay-saying, experienced know-it-alls. But mom, enticed by the idea of saving a landfill or two, gave it a go.

Staying home with me, mom was pretty confident diaper-free would be easy. But she was bummed about the fortune spent on washable diapers that, now, she surely wasn't going to need.

Potty time was fun. I sat on my potty, looking in the mirror and reading books. Every full pot was party-time and I received hugs and kisses for the empty ones too. Yet sadly, mom's diaper-free dream was far from reality. It turns out mom's a slacker. Those washable dipes were a great investment. And, a disposable diaper here and there is a lifesaver (although she'll deny it with every tree-hugging bone in her body).

So, diaper-free turned into, catch-a-few-a-day. If our timing was off a day or two, mom would lose interest, and we'd go for weeks without using the potty. But eventually my telepathic pleas would bring her back on course and we would reconstitute our catch-and-release program.

Mom was skeptical of the telepathy so we took sign language classes. At 10 months I could sign seven words. At 11 months I added "POTTY" to my repertoire. Unfortunately mom was slow on the uptake. The first time she responded with "yea, power to the people!" and put her fist in the air like I did. A minute later, very disappointed in my mother and hoping inattention skipped generations, I pooed in my pants. This action seemed to jolt my mother out of her stupor and she enquired, "Did you sign potty?"

The next day I began to fear this woman I called mom had stolen me from my much smarter parents, who I hoped were also very rich and frantically looking for me. When grandma and grandpa came to visit I showed off as requested by signing "dog." But then, as I anxiously signed "potty" mom handed me a bottle. "No lady - not milk - potty!" I thought, but all I could muster was a look of disgust and a poo in my pants.

For a while my mother paid more attention to my signing and it was a beautiful thing - we were in-synch. Not yet potty trained - but we definitely had some bragging rights. But woe is me. As I think I mentioned earlier, mom is a slacker. If she doesn't continually receive positive reinforcement, she loses interest. So, a few missed eliminations and a few more empty pots and that's all she wrote - no more potty time for me.

Fast forward to today. I'm a year-and-a-half old and mom has resurrected the potty idea so that she will not be changing diapers for two kids in the near future. But the funny thing is, I'm just not that interested. Frankly, I've got too much going on to worry about what's convenient for her. Being safely ensconced in a diaper gives me more time to play instead of constantly running to the potty.

I have advanced past signing and can now say "potty" and I like to shout out a "pee-yuu!" after I've pooped (in my pants of course). My greatest pleasure is telling mom "potty" and then proceeding to do nothing while sitting on the pot - giggling the entire time. I get it, and she knows I get it, but I'm just not ready to play the game by her rules. Hey, don't fault me. If she had kept at it, we could've been done with this mess months ago.

I figure just about the time she starts losing interest again, I'll surprise her with a full pot, but not every time. As we all know, it's important to keep things interesting and there's nothing more interesting to me right now than watching my parents spring into action whenever I use a little yet apparently powerful word like "potty".

For non-slackers, more information on going Diaper Free: http://www.diaperfreebaby.org/