I seriously hope you aren’t reading this expecting answers.

I’m beginning to think Dex is untrainable. At 3 years and 3 months we’re now pretty desperate to get him out of nappies, and embracing the toilet - well not literally embracing obviously - but even that would be a start. At the moment, just holding his hand and ushering him to the loo sees him rolling around the linoleum like he’s been shot.

We’ve bought him training seat after training seat, some plastic, some cushioned (anything for his Lordship)- decorated with whatever superhero or tv character is flavour-of-the-month. We’ve bared our own bits to show him firsthand how adults make potty. I’ve scoured YouTube for training vids featuring people he truly respects…

… I’ve decorated the bathroom with Minions, Buzz Lightyear and more, transforming it with balloons and posters. I’ve bribed him with chocolate, stickers and cheap toys just to sit on the loo for 30secs… Oh sod it, I’ve pretty much done the entire A-Z of potty training according to “Parenting Gurus”, fellow parent bloggers and random people who have just had a kid.

Everyone seems to have a genius system that just clicked. You don’t hear about the unholy side of potty training - where you take a deep breath, release their bum from the nappy safety net, and wait for the inevitable. I’ve been wee’ed on, had wets farts in my face, and had one joyous 4 hours stint scrubbing brown footprints from bedding and carpets after a particularly notable disaster. After that, I swore to myself I’d will never attempt the bare bum method ever again.

So maybe he’s not ready yet.

That’s what his childminder opined last month, after I had the audacity to palm the chore off onto her. I even wrote her a lengthy letter stating that I had chosen her to look after him in the first place as she’d boasted about her success rate during her interview. It was a bit of shady move really as I knew full well her usual tricks wouldn’t work on Dexter. The thought of her even trying makes me smirk like a Bond villain.

The thing is, it’s getting me down. Just last week we visited his new nursery for a tour, and sat among other parents on chairs that barely contained our arses to discuss the curriculum and what not. When I finally plucked up the courage to ask if they provided nappies, I tried desperately to blend back into the sea of faces so she wouldn’t see who had asked it. Not only did the other parents snigger, but the answer was something along the lines of “Well… we’d hope they come to us trained…”, heaping the pressure upon me to get him ready in the next 6 weeks.

So we’re here again. I can’t wait any longer.

So spare me a thought this week. I’ll be covering my floor in clingfilm, wringing out pee-soaked pants into the toilet, and channeling zen-like thoughts as I scoop unmentionables from tracksuits and jeans. If I don’t get around to posting about organic body butters or teething jewellery, you’ll know where I am.