Wednesday, June 19, 2013

I swore I wasn't going to do this...

I know that I said I wouldn't go into details about Potty Training.

I promised I wouldn't say anything gross or even bring it up. Anyone who's a parent, has probably already gone through this, or will go through this eventually. And if your not a parent, you probably don't really care. Understandable.

Unfortunately, this is my world right now.

Potty training has consumed every single minute of my day that the twins happen to be awake for. (They can pee/poop themselves silly while sleeping...one step at a time.)

I was excited for this moment. A little sad, of course, because it really means I will have no more babies in this house. But I'm so excited to not spend a FORTUNE on diapers anymore and not have to worry if that smell is coming from my kids rear end or if it's just the garbage.

I'm getting closer to just being responsible for having to wipe my own butt...first time in 6 years! Everyone else will be on their own, skid marks or not. That's what laundry detergent is for...

Potty training takes a lot of skill. Not from a child standpoint, but from a parents. You have to be on the ball every single second of the day. I haven't changed my clothes in days or brushed my teeth since Sunday. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't even resemble a human woman anymore. My house is fairly disgusting. It's not really messy, but I smell pee everywhere I go. Could be because I'm wearing most of it, but it's making spray the house obsessively with Lysol.

I'm hyper alert to every movement they make, watching for those "signs" that indicate pee/poo is about to arrive and stain the underwear they are currently wearing, then try to make a mad dash to the bathroom before the bomb that is their bladder goes off. I hardly ever make it...

If I don't receive any signs, we just go by our schedule. Every 15 minutes we go sit on the potty for 10 minutes. All. Day. Long. So you can imagine that I have to get pretty creative in order for this to happen. Just getting them to get into the bathroom is taking some skill. I thought that receiving a sucker for every successful moment was reward enough, but NOOOOOO. They need to be enticed just to sit there.

Right now, my bathroom has 2 potty chairs, (one of which, Declan is apparently too good to use. He decided that the big boy potty was the way to go. Which would be wonderful, IF Morgan didn't have her potty chair directly across from the toilet. He is not that great with his aim, just yet, and has a tendency to douse her like she's on fire), a stack of books to read, a stack of coloring books with a few crayons, stickers, a bucket of cars, a bucket of dinosaurs and lots and lots of bubbles.

There's been a lot of good moments. Things are improving. Not as fast as I would like them to, of course, but I don't think I really have a choice in the matter.

I have to do laundry every day now. At night, I load it up with whatever is dirty, toss in the pile of gross undies and wash/dry that load so we have underwear for the next day. Sounds crazy huh? I wouldn't have enough underwear if I didn't do this. I cleaned 20 pairs yesterday and that's not counting the 3 pairs that I threw away because of poop. (Yeah...I know. But seriously, there just comes a point in your life when you have to make a choice between cleaning a filthy, disgusting pair of underwear after a LONG day of potty training failures, or just toss that crap out and hope for better the next day. My sanity won.)

You know what else I thought was brilliant (now, looking back, knowing how really, absolutely, stupid or desperate I was)? I bought these tiny recorders, that I found in the Target party section, as a "prize" when you get 3 good pee-pee's in a row. Just brilliant. Great incentive. The trick worked and the twins actually did it. Really early in the morning too. Now I have to listen to my own miniature, psychotic sounding marching band for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening until they go to bed and I can destroy all evidence of the ear-piercing recorders existence.

If you don't hear from me for awhile, just know that I'm slowly going crazy. I've been locked in a bathroom with a set of twins for just 3 days now and I'm not 100% sure I'm going to make it out. I just have my nook and some Prozac to keep me company.

Send help immediately.

1 comment:

  1. I can't imagine trying to do a two-for-one deal with potty training. I'm so wildly impressed that you've got the cojones to take it on. Best of luck!

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