Yesterday at the grocery store I saw M&Ms on the shelf and was reminded that I should potty train Tristan. One peepee, one M&M. Two for a poop. Operating on the bizarre principal – inherited from Oma (my mother) – that peanut M&Ms offer a significant nutritional advantage over the other kinds, I threw a bag of those in the cart.

Later, when we were home and Tristan was up from his nap, I informed him of the promised booty for waste products produced in the red plastic potty. Tomas and Phoebe, too, were told they would receive the same rewards (for Tristan’s accomplishments, of course) so as to promote their support for the program.

Smart little Tristan looked at the factors – and those missing from my proposed system – and did some calculations. No volume requirement, huh? In the first 45 minutes of Shrek 3 (the inaugural movie for potty training) he sat his bum on the potty no fewer than six times to squeeze out tiny toothpaste cap-sized dribbles of piss. Tomas and Phoebe joyfully received their rewards alongside the twerp.

Fearful of the certain consequences, I introduced a volume requirement. The peepee had to be big. No problem. Tristan selected a plastic teacup from the kids play kitchen set and proceeded to fill it at the bathroom sink three dozen times. Then he made a couple of gigantic peepees. He also managed to squeeze out a totally unnecessary, meager poop to receive the double reward.

And then he was JACKED UP. He cackled like a mad man. He climbed the walls. He made swords out of anything and everything. By the end of the night, he had ruined the family movie, peed on the floor, put Phoebe in tears a dozen times, pissed off Tomas, utterly destroyed Daddy, completely screwed the rewards system, and, well, demonstrated that he was potty trained.