It gets better

The perspective of details:

1. I gave Samuel ice cream. La-di-dah. Ho-hum.

2. It was a potty treat.

3. Not as a reward for producing -- a bribe just to get him to sit there!

4. It was 5 p.m., almost dinner time. I didn't care. This kid hadn't produced since 10 a.m., and was a screaming, naked time-bomb running through the house. Something had to be done. Enter the bit of ice cream Jeff brought home for our in-house date. (He'd eaten his share alone.)

5. THE ICE CREAM WAS BEN AND JERRY'S!!! THAT'S PREMIUM STUFF, PEOPLE!!!

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

And here we see a scene I vividly recall from my own childhood when I, like Elise, was enlisted to read to a younger brother in training.

I'm thinking about installing a loudspeaker in the bathroom so James can read to Samuel, and I can listen to James from the kitchen while I work, thus fulfilling James' oral reading homework.

P.S. On Elise's watch, Samuel ran off from the EMPTY potty and, er, "decorated" the fireplace.