Just when I thought the fun was over, our potty training woes came back to bite us in the ... pull-up.

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Ben had been doing so well. He’d gone weeks without a single problem and had declared himself to be totally potty trained.

I was ready to throw a party, and wanted to tell everyone — from our closest relatives to strangers on the street — that the diaper days were over in the Fuhrman household.

Then the accidents started. At first, there was just one or two a day. He swore he was trying to make it, but just hadn’t hurried quite enough. By the end of the week, though, he wasn’t making it just about every time and didn’t seem to really be trying.

So we pulled out something he dreads — the pull-ups.

At some point, Ben’s big brother managed to convince him that kids in pull-ups couldn’t run as fast as those in big boy underwear. Ben bought it 100 percent. When I told him he’d be wearing a pull-up to school that day, the tears started to flow. He’d be slow, he cried. He wasn’t a baby, he insisted.

“Prove it,” I told him, feeling just a little bit mean but knowing I had to do something to get him back on track. If he kept that pull-up clean and dry, I promised he’d be back in his big boys for his soccer game that evening.

Imagine my surprise when I picked him up from preschool a few hours later and spied Nemo underwear peeking out above his shorts. Where had his pull-up gone? Ben had no idea. He just couldn’t remember what had happened to this article of clothing — which had just hours before had been attached to his body — but cheerfully informed me his underwear were clean.

After we checked with the teachers, who insisted he’d had Nemo’s on when he got there, it began to dawn on me.

My 4-year-old had pulled a fast one with his pull-up. And he’d almost gotten away with it.

Finally, I got him to tearfully confess that he’d taken off the pull-up, thrown it in the trash, and gotten re-dressed before school that morning. Quite a feat for a kid who normally can’t seem to get one leg in each hole of his shorts.

He sat time out. He got a lecture. He lost some favorite things. And we made him put back on the pull-up. We haven’t had an accident since.

Ben’s back in his big boys and, hopefully, he’s learned it’s a bad idea to lie to your mom.

But just in case, I’m not putting away the pull-ups quite yet.

Amy Fuhrman is the mother of two boys and editor of the Lake Norman Navigator. E-mail her at .

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