Today I learned that, in a pinch (also known as a 30-minute carpool line), a children’s lunch box lined with a plastic grocery bag (I knew there was a reason I didn’t switch completely to cloth) makes a fine vessel for … well, let’s just say it … pee.

I think life was much less gross when I only had a daughter.

Sometimes I wonder if Jerry and I are too straightforward with our kids.

We agreed early on that there would be no baby talk in our family, that we would answer our children’s questions openly and honestly, and that we would use proper anatomical terms when discussing our and their bodies (a big move for a girl who grew up in a family that referred to the penis as a “pee bug”).

The result: smart, communicative kids with excellent vocabularies – who absorb everything and later regurgitate it. Like the other night, when Jerry was cooking Italian sausages for dinner and Cera casually remarked,  “Hey, they look like penises.” (Granted, with a potty-training preschooler, there’s a lot of penis talk – and overall penis fascination – in our household lately.)

Another case in point:

One morning last week, prompted by questions from Ant, I led a frank discussion about how babies eat, which evolved from bellybuttons to breastfeeding. His curiosity satisfied, we switched subjects, and I didn’t think much more about it.

Until a few days later, when we were walking through the bakery department at our grocery store and Anthony pressed a toy chipmunk to my breast and started making sucking sounds.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Chippy’s drinking your milk,” Ant said matter-of-factly.

Maybe I shouldn’t have laughed, but I had to.

“Mommy doesn’t have milk anymore,” I explained.

“Did I drink it all?” Ant asked.

“Yes,” I replied, another laugh escaping my lips. “You drank it all.”

Yep, I created him. And now I have to deal with him.

Who says $2 can’t buy happiness?

When Ant and I were at the dollar store this week, replenishing his prize box (which has gone from a “potty” box to a “twice-a-day tooth-brushing” box – hey, I’m not above bribery for any and all unliked activities), we found two diamonds in the rough – a gold plastic knight’s helmet and matching shield – with shiny dragon emblem. So far, they’ve held up pretty well for a 200-cent purchase – and I should know, as my afternoons since have been spent getting whacked in the shins with a plastic sword as I battle my “knightmare” (to set the record straight, he gave himself that name).

I should have bought myself a shield as well.

Anthony is enjoying his new toys so much that he’s declared he wants to be a knight for Halloween (let’s hear it for cheap costumes). And, as an added bonus, the shield and helmet provide the perfect foil when my little man doesn’t want his picture taken.

What a difference four weeks makes! Less than a month after Anthony shocked me – and himself – by peeing in the potty for the first time, I’m daring to say that my son is fully potty-trained. He hasn’t had an accident in nearly two weeks, and that includes shopping trips, dinners out, nursery time at the Y and several days worth of carpools. We’ve retired the pull-ups, even at night. And – unless he has to poop – Ant does everything by himself, from turning on the bathroom light to lifting the seat, peeing, flushing and washing his hands. Frankly, I’m stunned.

All of this may have led to a bit of overconfidence on my part. This afternoon, Ant and I met a friend for lunch (during which he used the potty twice) and then headed to a nearby dollar store to restock his prize box. As we picked through foam swords and puzzles and bubble wands and pirate hats, Anthony declared, “Mommy, I’ve got to poopy again.”

Doubting that the dollar store even had a bathroom, I went into frantic search mode. We finally found two restrooms in a back corner of the store, both bearing the dreaded words, “Please see cashier for key.” (A quick side note: This was a dollar store nestled between a spa and an upscale eatery in a pretty swanky shopping complex. I’m not sure why they felt it necessary to lock the bathroom doors, but whatever.)

So it was up to the front of the store, where the world’s slowest-moving cashier checked three registers for the keys before declaring she didn’t have them.

“Maybe one of them is unlocked,” she drawled.

I hadn’t tried to open the men’s room, so Ant and I sprinted back to the bathrooms, which both were locked. I knocked on the doors with no response, then grabbed Anthony and headed for the car, hoping to find a diaper or pull-up or something I could throw on him that he could poop in. Not the ideal situation, but it was all I could think of.

However, thanks to that overconfidence I mentioned earlier, there was nothing absorbent to be found.

“Can you hold it?” I asked.

Anthony grunted a quick “yes,” and we were off again, searching for the nearest fast-food restaurant or gas station.

“Are you still OK?” I asked again and again.

Ant continued to answer with grunts as he struggled to contain himself.

A few minutes later, I swung into a convenience store parking lot, grabbed Anthony from the backseat and made a beeline for the bathroom. I had his pants down and his butt situated on the potty in seconds.

Ant promptly farted, smiled up at me and declared, “OK, I’m done.”

And the first thing I did when we got home?

Restocked my purse with pull-ups, of course.

Not because I don’t have faith in my son. But because you never know when a dimwitted cashier won’t be able to find the bathroom key.

Is it wrong to want your child to be upset?

Because yesterday, when I went to initial Cera’s daily behavior chart, instead of the usual sticker, I found the words: “Moved to green. Disrupting peers during Writers’ Workshop.”

(For those of you like me who went to school in the ’80s, when teachers were quick to send you to the principal or swat you with a paddle bearing the words “The End,” students now receive various levels of warnings before they actually get in trouble. For example, in Cera’s class, each student starts the day with his or her fish “swimming in the ocean.” Above “the ocean” are green, yellow and red fishbowls. Students who misbehave are warned at least twice about their behavior before having to move their fish out of the ocean and into the green bowl. If their bad behavior continues, they move into the yellow bowl and then the red, with corresponding consequences for each.)

So, back to the chart. I can’t say I was shocked that Cera got in trouble for “disrupting” her peers. I mean, the girl’s a natural-born talker. In fact, I’m more surprised that she hasn’t been called out for being disruptive before.

What did shock me, however, was the way she reacted when I asked her about moving her fish.

“It’s no big deal,” she said. “Lots of people go to green.”

It’s no big deal? NO BIG DEAL?!?

I should note that I was the kind of kid who would have burst into tears if I found my fish in a fishbowl instead of the ocean. One of the worst memories of my elementary school years was being sent to the principal’s office after my best friend punched the new girl in our neighborhood in the face on the way home from school. I was devastated. Humiliated. Scared to death. And I was only in the office as a witness.

I guess I wanted – or maybe just expected – Cera to be somewhat upset that she’d had to move to green. Or to at least show a little remorse.

So, instead of commiserating with my daughter about the shame of being disciplined, I ended up talking to her about how misbehaving is a “big deal” and how her dad and I want to see a sticker on her behavior chart each day instead of a color and a note.

Hopefully, she’ll choose to remain a little fish in the big ocean.

I can only assume that, somewhere along the line, Anthony saw one of the above signs and took it to heart. Because, aside from peeing on the potty each morning when he wakes up, the only place he’s used the bathroom consistently is at the pool.

During each pool trip over the past week – including an afternoon at my parents’ – Ant has announced that he has to pee and then held it until we’ve made it to the bathroom. At the Y pool especially, this is quite a feat, as it involves climbing out of the pool, walking quickly but carefully to the women’s room and across the slippery floor and pulling down a wet bathing suit, plastic pants (the Y requires them, a policy I completely agree with after numerous evacuations last summer due to … well, “floaters”) and a swim diaper. Compare that to home, where yesterday, Ant, wearing only a pull-up, made it just inside the bathroom door before unloading on the floor. Honestly, I didn’t know a toddler could produce that much pee.

Overall, potty training is going fairly well. Ant has rounded the first curve on his Potty Train-ing chart, earning several stickers and other small prizes along the way. We’re still waiting for him to poop in the potty, an occasion that will be acknowledged with the awarding of a new Venom action figure that he’s been begging for for months. I’m not pushing it, though. Because after several months of complete inaction on the potty training front, I’ll take what I can get.

Carpool this afternoon was excruciating. It took more than 30 minutes from the time I got in line until I reached the yellow traffic cone where Cera and her classmate were waiting. It was unbelievably hot and humid. And I got stuck behind an old, jacked-up SUV with obvious exhaust problems, leading Anthony to whine nonstop (and rightfully so) about the gas fumes that filled our van.

It was not fun.

“Sorry I’m so late,” I said to Cera and her classmate. “Carpool took forever.”

“I know,” Cera said with an exasperated sigh. “It was the kindergartners. They have no idea what they’re doing.”

Wait, wasn’t my girl a kindergartner herself just 28 short days ago? How quickly she’s forgotten!

Do you notice anything here?

Yes, there FINALLY is a second sticker on Anthony’s potty training chart, marking the first time he has used the potty for me (the first sticker is from a time he allegedly went at preschool, which Jerry and I doubt ever happened).  This morning’s event is huge for several reasons:

• Anthony is supposed to be potty-trained when he goes back to preschool on August 31 – or at least seriously trying.
• My little man has been so resistant to potty training that he once told me that he hated me for making him sit on the potty. I didn’t even know he knew the word “hate.”
• Now that he’s done it once and realizes that he’s not going to fall into the potty (the excuse he kept giving me), maybe both of us can stop stressing so much over the whole process.

Really, it was a priceless experience, watching Ant’s face widen in amazment and hearing him exclaim, “Mommy, the pee-pee is coming out of my penis!”

Let’s just hope it continues to flow.

Today is Cera’s first day of first grade. It’s also our first day of a new carpool arrangement with one of her classmates, so, as my baby is on her way to school this morning, I’m able to share this picture, taken just a few minutes ago. Doesn’t she look so grown-up? Not to mention beautiful.

Cera went sledding for the first time last night – in 90-degree temperatures!