Mommy Files: Potty Training

This morning I woke up an hour late.  It's Tim's fault but who is counting?  Oh yeah, I am!  Anyway, Claire woke up with her diaper dry and so I decided that today was the day.  I've be researching potty training on the Internet and came across a doctor or some other such "expert" who advised that when children are between 18-22 months is the optimal time to train and that the best way to do it is to let your child run around naked from the waist down.  She claimed that anything on their bottom encourages going in the pants.  I was talking to my mother-in-law yesterday and she made the same suggestion so I thought that the cosmos were trying to tell me that this is what I should do.  So, it was with this cosmic assurance that I broke the first cardinal rule of potty training.  I started it when I was stressed.  

That's where the waking up late comes into play.  I had to meet a friend at 9:30 am and at 9:28 am my un-showered stressed out self was instructing Claire how to clean up the pool of pee on the floor.  Thankfully she did it on the hardwood instead of the carpet.  I went to meet my friend in a state that is truly embarrassing and the kids didn't look any better.  The bright spots?  Claire didn't do her business on my friend's carpet. 

When we got home from my friend's house I finally got into the shower at about 10:30am.  I moved the potty in front of the TV and told Luke to help Claire if she needed it.  It seemed like a good plan at the time but writing it makes it seem absurd that a 5 year old could help with such things.  However, when I raced out of the shower I heard Luke telling her that if she needed to go that the potty was the place to put it.  Not bad huh?  For the next several hours Claire alternated between watching TV and sitting on the potty.  All her own idea.  Which is pretty good.  Finally around 1:00pm we had victory.  She went over, pulled down her drawers and deposited the pee in the potty.  I did the potty dance.  Claire laughed.  About 15 minutes later she says she needs to go again and proceeds to sit down.  This time a little nugget.  I really do the potty dance.  Brag to the person I'm on the phone with.  Do the potty dance.  Claire laughs.  I tempt the Potty Gods by thinking in my mind, "This is a piece of cake!"  I further my fate by calling my sister and bragging some more.  Could I be more idiotic? 

I felt brave enough to venture out and do a small errand.  I put loose pants on Claire's tush and lined her car seat with a towel.  She didn't have an accident in the car.  It was the calm before the storm.  About an hour after we got home I looked up from the kitchen table to see that Claire was missing.  That could only mean one thing.  She is in her room....you guessed it....doing her business.  In slow motion I ran down the hall, "NOOOOOO!!!!!!"  The second Claire heard me coming she pointed to the corner and said,"I peed over there."    She was holding her bottom and number 2 sounded imminent.  So I whisked her down the hall and sat her on the potty.  She left wet footprints down the hall.  Awesome.  Now I have carpet and footprints.  I got everything cleaned up and it was time to make dinner.  Dum dee dum dum duuuuuummmm . 

I kept Claire and the potty with me.  I set the timer to have her sit again in 30 minutes.  That was 13 minutes too many because right as I was getting my Alfredo sauce right where I wanted it Claire yells, "I need to go potty."   I ran over to rush her to the potty and nearly fell in the pile of poop on the floor.  Bright spots?  It was on hardwood.  Dark spots?  My Alfredo is burning.  I put her in the shower and quickly cleaned her up.  Gage, bless his soul, toweled her off and got her new PJs.  I ran back to the stove.  The water for the noodles was madly boiling and so was my Alfredo.  While I was trying to fix it I thought, "Why?"  Of course, I know the answer.  I believe Murphy's exact words were, "While a mother is cooking dinner anything that can go wrong, will."  It's my fault.  I tempted the Potty Gods.  I got what I deserved. 

It was in this frazzled state that Claire and Luke starting fighting over a toy phone and I yelled.  "Claire, it is not yours!!!!!  You need to knock it off!"  Gage was helping me with dinner and he gave me this look with raised eyebrows and everything that said, "Was that the best way to handle that?"  I rolled my eyes and said, "That girl needs her bottom spanked."  Gage actually said, "Don't do that. I'll take care of this."  He tenderly walked over to Claire and asked her if he could help her find another toy phone.  It was in that instant that I realized that I misunderstood the cosmos all together.  A 7 year old boy is quite possibly more qualified to be mother than I am.            

    

Dang Sick of It

Do you love how the moms on diaper commercials always have this big smile on their face?  Well, I'm not smiling.  I have been changing diapers for 7 and a half years straight.  No breaks.  7 and a half solid years and for one of those years I was changing a toddler and a newborn at the same time.  Today, I felt like screaming, "No more dirty diapers!!!!"  Claire is fully capable of using the toilet.  She wakes up dry and tells me when she is going to go or when she is going.  However, she throws a sobbing fit every time I even suggest the toilet....let alone put her on it.  She's only 2 and a half so I'm trying to be patient but her new thing is to not let me changer her.  That's a lovely air freshener.  So I've been letting her sit in it hoping it will motivate her to use the toilet but to no avail. 

Today, I felt like I've just had enough.  I sternly told her that she had to use the toilet and that I was dang sick of changing her diaper.  She cried.  Of course.  Once she calmed down she said in the softest and saddest voice, "You talk mean to me."  Well, excuse me but let me break down 7 and a half years straight of diaper changing.  I have a calculator and while I will not show my work I have figured that I have changed 15,513.  And that's only averaging 5 diapers a day.  You know it's more because newborns need to be changed 12 times a day and kids get the stomach flu.  If a diaper costs about a quarter each then it's about $4000 we spent in diapers.  And she wonders why I talked mean?  You do anything 15,513 and I bet that by 15,514 there might be an edge to your voice.  Not to mention the awesome trip I could have taken with $4000!     

       I talked mean to this sweet little face.  I'm a monster.

October Led to Janurary and Somewhere in There I Lived My Life

It seems like forever since I blogged.  I'm sure it was not missed, but maybe I've missed it a little bit.  In October I was called to be the Primary President and I'm not sure I have had a coherent thought ever since.  I know somewhere in there we had Thanksgiving and Christmas.  For sure I remember having Christmas.  In between, I've had meeting after meeting, stress, planning, and praying.  It has been an eye opening experience for me and also a very good one.

Meanwhile, my little family is growing and changing and before I miss it all I'll like to record some of it.  A few days ago I looked at my kitchen table and realized that I don't have a high chair any more.  A high chair sat in my kitchen for 7 years and now it is just gone.  Six lonely chairs sit around my table.  There's no stroller in my trunk.  Claire hasn't sat in one for quite sometime.  Claire is starting to ask for a bed and so I know the crib is next.  Thankfully she still loves for me to rock her before bed so I'll try and hang onto that for as long as I can because when it is time to put it away I know that all traces of the babies I had will be gone forever.  It fills me with profound sadness and yet it feels like a new beginning.  Claire's personality delights me and it is so nice to have this built in little girlfriend.  Who loves PINK and dresses and nail polish.  She is a little mom to the boys, complete with a bossy voice and a hand on her hip.  I love it when I hear her say, "Gage!  Knock it off."  I wonder who she heard that from?

 Claire got sparkly shoes and a sparkly wand at the cousin's gift exchange. Can you say perfect gift?

Claire loves the girl cousins. 

There comes a time in every boy's life when they discover that, while Mom is great and all, their Dad does some pretty cool stuff.  I think that happened for Luke over the Christmas Break.  So many times I thought, "Wait!  Luke is my buddy.  Come back."  Of course, I have to let him go but I find that I savor those moments when he asks to sit on my lap or tells me that he wants to be with me forever all the more.  In the past, Luke didn't really care, all that much, when his Dad was coming home, but since Tim went back to work, after Christmas, Luke was asking at about noon when his Dad was going to be home.  After my mom's death, Luke was so fragile and clung to me with a kung foo grip.  We grieved together....a lot.  Around Halloween Luke started to break free from his consuming grief and in a lot of ways it set me free as well.  I'll never forget the day I brought out the Halloween decorations, because it was the first time in 7 months that I saw Luke as an excited little boy again who was excited about something.  Christmas was even better.  On Christmas eve, he was totally captivated by the sounds of bells (possibly found on his aunt's ring) and searched high and low for the source and was finally convinced that Santa was on his way and that he better get into bed ASAP!

 I don't think Luke meant to flip us off. 

Luke said, "It's Nerf or Nothin!"  For the entire month leading up to Christmas 

Somebody has an attitude.

I don't know where to begin with the changes in Gage.  He is more prone to mischief than he was even 3 months ago.  He hates changing his underwear and he is sure I'm trying to ruin his life by suggesting it.  He's trying out how sass feels on his tongue and he is sure he knows EVERYTHING.  I say often, "I've been spelling for 32 years so maybe I know how to spell something better than you?"  He wants to be taken seriously and he loves it when I let him do something that he perceives as grown up.  Staying up late on New Year's while the little ones were already in bed and taking the dog we were tending on a walk at 11pm with his Dad had his chest out five inches at least.  His Christmas list was certainly an expensive one this year and it was the first year that I didn't buy him what I would call a toy.  He does still like Lego's so maybe I can count that as a toy?  

  

Yes, I gave Gage tape for Christmas.  An inside joke.