For the last several weeks I’ve been trying to make this social story for Elvis about using the potty.  Part of the trouble has been images.  Photographs are more concrete than drawings, but there are some things that just shouldn’t be photographed.  So when it came time to do the pages about sitting down on the toilet vs. standing up, I thought I would have to settle for drawings.

My own artistic skills are somewhat limited, though I’m not too proud to put my lack of talent on display for the sake of my children’s education.  However, the best–or least offensive–drawings I could make of sitting on a toilet involved rudimentary stick figures, and I wasn’t sure if Elvis would “get” them or not.  I preferred to have a better drawing.  So I did something that I knew I should not do.  You know where this is going, don’t you? 

Right now you’re thinking, “No, girl, you did not–you did NOT look for toilet pictures on Google Images!”  Look, I said I wasn’t proud.  I knew it wouldn’t be pretty, but I was desperate.  I tried to play it safe.  I tried to find links via autism sites; they were all broken.  I used my inferior Googling skills to try to find the sites the original links were supposed to be linking to.  I Googled “toilet training” instead of just “toilet.”  I did not Google “sitting on the toilet.”  Okay?  I’m not that stupid.  I am only a little bit stupid.  Well, even under “toilet training” there were images I did not care to see.  Gentle reader, you would not believe what pictures people will post of their own kids online.  No, not those kinds of pictures.  But still–nothing you want on your Facebook page when you’re trying to get a job, you know what I’m saying?.  ::shudder::  Learn from my mistakes.  Do not go there.

So after all this suffering, did I even get what I had come for?  No.  So I thought, very well, I will use my rudimentary stick figures.  At least they aren’t DISGUSTING.  Well, to me they’re not.  I couldn’t really say what Elvis would think.  And that’s when I remembered (later than I would have liked, but fortunately not too late) that I own a digital camera and the Fisher Price Loving Family dollhouse–fully furnished!

Here is where you’ll probably want to stop reading.  Heck, you probably should have never come here in the first place.  If you’re still here, maybe you get what you deserve.  But I feel obligated to post the following photographs as a service to any other desperate parents out there who might be Googling “non-disgusting toilet training pictures that won’t get me arrested if the cops ever search my computer.”

I had a little trouble at first with my model.  He’s not the easiest to work with.

See, that just doesn’t look comfortable, does it?

Fortunately, his knees bend.

See, that’s more genteel, isn’t it?  And an equally discreet image of the Greatest Joy of Manhood (according to my husband):

And because my children have a particular problem with pooping while standing:

Yes, I realize that the doll’s pants are still on in all these pictures.  I’M NOT A SICKO, OKAY?  That’s the whole rationale behind this exercise.

Anyway, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t stop giggling this afternoon.  Because I’ve lost my mind, Gentle Reader.  I have lost my freaking mind.