Monica, Charlene, and Ethyl talk Fran into making Earl start changing the Baby's diapers. After a horrifying first experience, Fran tells Earl he'll have to get used to it, as he'll be changing the diapers until the Baby is potty trained. This causes Earl to decide to potty train the Baby, despite being too young. After having the Baby use the toilet, the Baby poops in his diaper, causing Earl to take the Baby back to the bathroom until he's potty trained. When Earl decides to bring some prune juice, which he believes will make the Baby go, Baby sneaks out, escaping in Ethyl's wheelchair. When Earl comes back, he thinks the Baby has been flushed down the toilet. The next morning, the family finds that Ethyl's wheel chair is missing, and they come to the conclusion that the Baby was stolen (well, Earl believes that 'some thief broke in, flushed the baby down the toilet, drank his juice, and then escaped in Ehtyl's wheelchair"). Earl and Robbie follow the tire tracks from the wheelchair.
Baby goes to the woods, and the forest creatures tell him that in the woods, everyone can do whatever they want. Unfortunately, a pterodactyl picks up the Baby, intending to feed it to its unhatched offspring. Before leaving, she warns the Baby to not escape, as the fall from the nest would be disastrous. Earl and Robbie find the Baby and Earl admits he was wrong to potty train him. After apologizing and telling the Baby to jump down, Baby decides to think about it. When the eggs start to hatch, he jumps, Earl misses him but he's still alright. Earl promises that the Baby can continue wearing diapers until he's ready to be potty trained, and the Baby chooses a bad time to be ready, late at night when Earl wants to sleep.
Includes examples of
- An Aesop: Don't rush into potty training kids.
- Affably Evil: The mother pterodactyl who attempts to feed Baby to her soon-to-be-hatched babies acts polite and civil to the Baby after catching him.
- All-Natural Fire Extinguisher: Simulated at the end of the episode. Earl is trying to toilet-train Baby, so he tells him to picture himself as a fireman putting out a fire so that he can learn to pee standing up. He then yells that he's not on fire, implying that Baby unintentionally peed on him.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Earl and Roy change Baby's diaper for the first time, the scene is shot from the Baby's point of view. Earl tells the Baby, "Don't you point that thing at me", only to be sprayed... And then it's shown that the Baby used his squirt gun to squirt water at Earl.
- Censorship by Spelling: Fran and Earl both do this when arguing in front of the Baby (Fran spells Baby, Earl struggles to spell diaper), but the Baby spells "they think I can't spell" with his letter blocks.
- The Diaper Change: Earl tries to get Fran to change Baby's diaper at the beginning of the episode, but Fran follows Charlene, Ethyl, and Monica's advice and makes Earl do it himself, having changed every diaper for the past fifteen years. Earl and Roy attempt to change Baby's diaper, and are horrified by the experience, with Earl telling Fran that changing diapers is female's work and the very reason he married her.
- Exact Words / Metaphorically True: When Fran asks Earl to come to bed, when Earl thinks the Baby has been flushed down the toilet, Earl steps on the flusher, leading to Fran asking if he went. Earl replies, "yeah, he's gone".
- Kidnapping Bird of Prey: Or pterosaur in this case.
- Let's Meet the Meat: Baby has a conversation with a mother pterodactyl who intends on Baby being the first meal of her kids once they hatch.
- Nature Tinkling: The forest creatures Baby encounters state their disgust at the concept of using a toilet and inform him that in the wild, you can go wherever you want to go (except where they've set up a volleyball court).
- Not So Extinct: One of the forest creatures is a Grapdelite, a species that was previously established have only two remaining individuals left in "Endangered Species". Either the Grapdelites turned out to be this trope, or this one is merely a different species that's closely related.
- Potty Emergency: Happens twice in this episode. The first time, it happens to Earl, who is trying to induce it on Baby by following advice from a toilet-training book about imagining running water. Upon thinking about it himself, Earl practically shoves Baby off the toilet so he can use it himself. The second time occurs later in the episode, and it happens to Charlene. When Earl is still in the bathroom, having thought Baby flushed himself down the toilet (long story), Charlene breaks the door open, and the rest of the family is shocked to find the state of the bathroom when Earl attempts to rescue Baby.
- Tinkle in the Eye: Subverted and later played straight. At one point, it looks like Baby is peeing on Earl while he changes his diaper, but it turns out that Baby was just playing with a water pistol. At the end of the episode, Baby wakes up Earl in the middle of the night to inform him that he's ready to begin potty-training, and the subsequent dialogue implies that Earl is trying to teach Baby to pee standing up.Earl: Now, imagine there's a fire and you are the fire captain. No. No. No. I'm not the fire! The fire's over there!
- Toilet Training Plot: In this episode, Earl tries unsuccessfully to potty-train Baby to get out of having to change diapers. Baby finally decides he's ready at the end of the episode.
