On a fecal side note: Natalia was a gassy baby. I remember there was one night when she was constantly breaking wind, and then the dog Molly got in on it, too. So I decided, fuck it, I was going to let it fly myself. I was going to fart-icipate. We’d have a nice family fart fest. It was kind of fun, until Lynette came in and blamed me, and then didn’t appreciate when I tried to pin it on Natalia and the dog.

When it came time to potty train them, Natalia beat Sonny to the punch. I came home one night, and Lynette said, “Do you notice anything different about Natalia?” I immediately guessed something was up with her hair. That’s usually the answer to “Notice anything different?” with the chicks. Lynette told me, “No, she’s wearing her underpants.” This might seem like I was tuned out, but it’s ultimately a good thing that I didn’t notice, because the last thing you want is the answer, “Yep, I know that crotch up and down and I noticed instantly something was off.” That’s what we’d call a tell in the To Catch a Predator game.

It wasn’t a perfect pull-up to potty progression. We developed a system where I had to wake her up at midnight and take her to pee so that she didn’t have an accident in bed. It was a little hit and miss. Sometimes she’d beat me to the pee-pee punch. If she was wet, I’d make Lynette handle it. I wasn’t fucking with that nonsense. But most times she’d just be in this fog, take care of business and later have no memory of it. I’d rub her head and gently coach her to take a leak, so Daddy could get to bed himself. But I didn’t know about the toilet paper part, until I was informed by Lynette that I didn’t know that there was front wiping for the ladies after a tinkle. I’m a guy, we only have one use for toilet paper. And I can’t wipe for her. That would be super weird. So I’d hand her the paper and let her do it. It was dark, because I didn’t want to wake her up and her midnight motor skills weren’t so good, so who knows how that all went, but an attempt was made and soon we were all able to go back to bed.

But those minutes waiting for her to pee felt like forever. I’d just sit there and wait in the silence and then, suddenly, it would sound like someone was using a pressure washer to clean the coping of a pool.

Let me do a little side tangent on bathroom sounds. I was at another one of my vintage races and had the bad luck of having to make a number two in the port-a-potty. I didn’t have any other option. That is a fate worse than death. We all know the smell is terrible but what I realized then was that even more disconcerting is the sound. Or lack thereof. The worst noise a man, woman or child can hear is when your ass is on that wafer-thin port-a-potty seat to do a little offloading and the dook doesn’t make the splash sound. It just sounds like you shit on a hot rock. That splash noise is comforting, as opposed to that awful “flop” sound. I’d rather hear a dentist’s drill. You get this in the airplane bathroom, too. You don’t realize how much you miss that sound when you don’t have it. This led me to envision another in my series of new apps. I call it Kerplunk. You put your earbuds in and, at the appropriate time, hit the button and it plays a nice splash sound, like dropping a charcoal briquette into a bucket of water.

Back to Natalia and her wily urethra. One time, she pulled down the pajamas and underpants like normal, and somehow the stream was off and she ended up soaking her jammies. So I was standing there holding her pee-jays, trying not to drip the wee on myself while fishing around in the dark for a clean pair. I ended up grabbing Sonny’s Underoos and holding them up to the nightlight to try to figure out what the fuck is going on without waking him up. I was on the verge of just telling her to go to bed without underwear or pajamas. But I didn’t want to endure Lynette’s wrath if she found Natalia naked the next morning, or the awkwardness of that partially recovered memory. I can just hear Natalia telling you, her therapist, “All I remember is my dad getting me up in the middle of the night, and then waking up naked the next morning.”

A couple of times the nightly pee routine did cause some tension with the wife. I came home at midnight once, after two live podcasts in the midst of an incredibly busy week. Lynette was luxuriating in a bathrobe on top of the 1,000 thread-count sheets watching Homeland. I literally didn’t even know what day it was, I had been so busy. I walked in and told her how burnt-out I was. She agreed that I needed to take a break from the road gigs, and then reminded me it was midnight and that I needed to take Natalia for a piss. I said I was too fucking tired. She said, “You’re right.” Then added, “Wait an hour, then do it.” It wasn’t malicious. It was worse. It just didn’t occur to her to do it herself. In her defense, when she saw me deflate at her suggestion and nearly pass out from exhaustion, she got the gist and took care of it herself.

As I said, Natalia beat Sonny in the potty-training race. He was still in pull-ups when she had moved on to panties. I tried to create a little quarterback controversy, a little competition and use her as leverage. I started shaming him by calling the pull-ups diapers, which he’d always angrily correct me on.

And a quick tangent on gender roles. One night, we ran out of the Spiderman pull-ups. All we had were Natalia’s now no-longer-needed Dora the Explorer ones left. When we attempted to put Sonny in them, it was like trying to put a cat in a crate. He was crying and infuriated that we would even consider putting him in pink girl pull-ups.

Also, when it comes to the Underoos and pull-ups in general, I don’t get it. Aren’t you supposed to idolize Doc McStuffins and SpongeBob and whoever the kids’ character du jour is? Why would you want to pee on them? Aren’t we just training kids to be into weird stuff sexually? We’re essentially telling them that if you love someone, you should take a leak on them. This is a golden-shower fetish waiting to happen.

The potty-training issue with Sonny was more about the backside than the front. He was a little obsessed with having a clean butthole. So if you, as his therapist, are seeing some OCD behavior that might be why. He would demand that we wipe his butt for a long time, until I made him start to do it himself. We’d go back and forth. He’d be calling from the bathroom, “Daddy, wipe my butt.” Then you’d hear me shouting from down the hallway, “Wipe yourself.” He wouldn’t give up the ass ghost on that one for a long time. He was worried he’d miss a spot. We eventually reached a compromise, where he’d bring me the toilet paper and I’d dust it for dook and make sure he had a clean wipe. I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t think shaming my son about his anus was a great plan. That’s the kind of thing that will land him in some horrifying porn. So rest assured, therapist, I did my best.

I can think of one pee-related incident with Sonny. There was a weekend when Lynette was going to Chicago to see Bruce Springsteen and taking the kids with her, which meant I got to drive her Audi. After they had been dropped off at the airport, I got a call from Olga but, through a broken cell connection and broken English, all I understood was that there was a problem in the car. I wasn’t sure what it was until I looked in the compartment on the passenger-side door. I found a Ziploc bag full of pee. Apparently, on the ride to the airport Sonny just couldn’t hold it. I used to be a bed wetter, so I get it. I don’t mind the piss in the bag, I just mind the part where it stayed in the car. I called Sonny that night for our usual good-night conversation and tossed in, “And thanks for the gift you left in the car.” Not getting the irony Sonny said, “That’s not a gift.”