Pottying in Pakistan – RESOLVED!
February 12, 2010
Before we get back to chronicling the wedding for which we recently traveled to (and have since returned from) Pakistan to attend, I thought some of you must be hanging on the edges of your seats wondering what happened with the potty issue!
Remember? I was worried about our three year old. He was then-newly-potty-trained and I was worried that he’d have difficulty adjusting to the open “Squat Toilet” that can be prevalent in Pakistan. I wrote about it in this old post, and I thought I had found the perfect solution – a folding travel potty that we could use by itself or set it up over the ol’ hole in the ground, especially at the outdoor and often primitive wedding venues we’d be spending so much time at. Well, it turns out that wasn’t a solution at all. Why? Well, because like I am prone to do, I had apparently worked myself up in a frenzy over something that was a complete non-issue. And it was resolved before we even arrived in Pakistan.
While we were transiting through the Exploded Peacock, my Mian took the baby to the bathroom. There was a long line and all the stalls had floor-to-ceiling doors, so he didn’t know until they’d had to wait for a long time that half the stalls had western style toilets and the other half had squat toilets. Their luck had run out and they’d gotten a squat toilet – but the baby couldn’t have waited in the line any longer. He had to make due with the hand he’d been dealt, so to speak. Luckily, M is much better at not freaking about about unknown situations (and imparting that stress onto the baby making the situation worse), so he just positioned the boy over the hole in the ground and the deed was done without a second thought.
The rest of the trip, the baby had no problems at all using the “Airport Potty” as he called it. M even had him use the Airport Potty at his parent’s house where they have both options next to each other. It kept the skills fresh, I guess. We did encounter a lot of squat toilets out and about in Karachi also, and it was literally a weight off my shoulders not to have to worry about, nor carry around our own folding potty (and then still have to carry around a used folding potty afterward also – yuck!)
When we got back home, we were still within the Babies R Us 30-day return policy, and since the item was completely untouched and unopened, I returned it. Someone who recently bought a lime green “Potette Plus” from my local store has no idea that their potty just recently returned from an excursion halfway around the world. Traveling Potty indeed!
