Jingle bells, jingle bells...

It's Christmas here at the Potty household.

Well, it's not, obviously. But it felt a bit like it was, this evening.

Not because Boy #2 has done an abrupt u-turn and suddenly decided to use the potty. Oh no. No sign of that happening for a good couple of months, I'm afraid. Just over a year ago, when I started this blog, I wrote this in my retrospective account of potty training Boy #1.

'After ten minutes of watching him sit down, stand up, settle himself again, then re-check that it’s all tucked in (there are some times it’s better to be a girl, I knew there had to be), then standing up to flush the loo again, I was so desperate for the loo myself that I ended up sitting next to him trying to encourage him to by example.

At one point I got excited that the grunts beside me might result in some action, until I realised that the little gasps of effort were related to his shredding of the loo paper, which in the time I’d taken my eyes off him had gravitated from the cardboard roll to a heap of tissue on the floor.

And as I sat there surrounded by drifts of toilet paper and looking at the thread veins on my legs which mysteriously appeared along with Boy#2 (pregnancy is the end, really – even six months after it’s over you keep finding new and exciting calling cards it’s left on your body), I thought back to my pre-child days with some degree of nostalgia.

Self pity is hard to maintain though when your son suddenly makes a ‘shhhhhhhh’ sound to imitate the sound of a non-existent wee (thought he was going to follow up with ‘schweppes please’ at one point), and then announces he’s finished.

Needless to say, the potty was empty.'

Well, this evening I had the oddest sense of deja vu... Boy #2 announced that he wanted to sit on the potty just before his bath. Nothing new there - he does that all the time. But usually, he's fully clothed. This evening, ready to climb into the bath, he was not. As he sat down on the throne, I permitted myself a - foolish - moment of hope. What followed was a visible and audible effort to perform, followed by a delighted giggle. Surely not, I thought? It can't be this easy?

Of course it can't. The giggle was prompted by tickling sensation from the piece of loo paper he had used to line the potty. Which was - of course - empty.

He's soooo not ready.

So no, Christmas is not here as a result of the potty training fairy wafting her magic wand over our household.

Instead, Christmas made a brief visit to us this evening via 'The Polar Express'. (If you've not seen it, I recommend that you go online right now and order it. This really is a wonderful film, suitable for children of all ages, even 41 year-olds like myself).

Both my Boys sat transfixed. It wasn't the first time they've seen this film. It wasn't even the 3rd or 4th time they've seen it. But Boy #2 - who is, I must admit, something of a petrol-head given his fascination with anything on wheels - won the toss when they were given the chance to watch a DVD , and it was his choice. His older brother complained of course, but I got the feeling that was more out of a sense of duty than because he didn't want to see it.

So the three of us curled up on the sofa together and were transported to a land of wonder, magic, snow and ice. They were both so in awe, in fact, that I was able to cut both sets of finger and toe-nails without a murmer of distress. Now that's what I call a result. And by the time it finished, and we had danced out the credits - with the three of us twirling around the living room, me with one son in my arms and the other spinning like a top at the end of my free hand - I fully expected to glance out of the window behind us and see CGI picture-perfect snowflakes falling prettily over a winter landscape.

It was raining, of course. This is London in August, after all.

And now the Boys are in bed - and I have to go and clean the nail clippings off the sofa. Rock and roll, baby. Rock and roll...