Tag: potty training

children, gratitude, happiness, mommyhood

Good Stuff

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Life is all about celebrating the little things. You successfully poop on the potty and that’s a reason to cheer (it’s nice because your Mom cheers, too). You get to wear big boy underpants, and life is good!

Or, if you are old enough and have good reports from school, your Dad takes you to work with him.

If your Mom is lucky, she gets to pick you up from downtown and spend the rest of the day with you. Then, when you say stuff like ‘Mom, I really like dating you,’ it makes her day.

This is some of the good stuff.

marital blissishness, mommyhood, potty training

A Mixed Bag

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I had little T.Puzzle seated on the potty because I knew a poop was coming. He hadn’t pooped the day before or all morning long. He also had just inhaled his lunch. I figured it couldn’t hurt.

He did about two, good stretches on the potty, each lasting 15 minutes or so. During the second set as it was winding down, I had given up, left the bathroom and fielded a call from Mad Dog. While chatting with Mad Dog a panicked little T.Puzzle shouts, “Mommy, I pooped on the potty!”

I screamed so loud I’m sure Mad Dog experienced hearing loss and nearly dropped the phone in my excitement. I shared the news with Mad Dog, quickly got off the phone and proceeded to make a complete fool of myself as I jumped up and down and yelled like a crazy person. It is hard to imagine living a life in which your happiness is so deeply tied to the bowel movement of another human.  This is a strange and disconcerting aspect of motherhood.

We celebrated with cookies, big boy underpants and made several, celebratory phone calls (it’s like winning an Oscar only better). Little T.Puzzle was pleased as punch. He strutted around in his Thomas the Train undies announcing to everyone and no one that he was ‘just like Full Speed’.

My excitement was short-lived because after dinner little T.Puzzle proceeds to poop in his Thomas pants and seemed unphased when I dramatically threw these pants in the trash (believe me, they were beyond repair). It was getting close to the end of the day and seemed pointless to put a new pair of undies on him. I decided to keep him pantless hoping that would prevent further accidents (many Moms swear by the pantless potty-training method) and I knew he would be in the tub for a bath in less than an hour.

The babysitter arrives as Mad Dog and I have a date nigh scheduled. I explain my potty-training adventure with little T.Puzzle and so she is prepared for the unexpected. As I’m explaining this, T.Puzzle pees all over the floor in the dining room. I clean up the mess, so much for pantless success, and help the babysitter get the boys in a bath. I look at the clock and realize that I haven’t heard from Mad Dog in a while and I should call him to check on his progress towards our date night. It usually isn’t a good sign if I don’t hear from him. That means he is caught up in work and may not be timely.

May not be timely turns into an understatement because when I call him he is still at work AND date night has slipped his mind.

My day was a mixed bag. It was full of surprise, excitement and more than one instance of disappointment. The good news is I know enough to hold on to the good stuff, realize everything is temporary (especially the bad stuff) and that in the grand scheme of things, I have life pretty darn good.

It helped that the movie Mad Dog and I saw, ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ was a ridiculous (and sometimes gross), farcical, nostalgic good time and that Mad Dog is very, very cute. Just like his boys, this saves him every, single time.

bad day, mommyhood, potty training

Under Fire

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My day was bad. T.Puzzle was oh-so-defiant from the moment his feet hit the ground in the morning. This got old. Fast.

I continued to attempt to potty-train him. He has mastered peeing on the potty. He still will not poop on the potty. Fifty-percent just isn’t cutting it.

You may wonder why it is not. How about the twenty-seven loads of poop related laundry I’ve done in the past seven days for starters? Or, maybe the crying, the tears and anguish (I’m talking about me, now) that poop-smeared socks have caused.

I spent a good portion of my morning with T.Puzzle screaming and crying while sitting on the potty. After about an hour of this, I gave up. I took off his pants and decided to let it go. It is becoming too much of a struggle and we both are miserable. I hoped he would give some sort of signal that he was about to poop since he had no pants. He did not.

He pooped all over the floor.

I’m giving it one more chance. The next time he poops anywhere but a potty, we are going back to pull-ups.

Everyone has their two cents. Everyone has what worked for them. Everyone apparently has children who were miraculously potty-trained in two days.

I don’t want advice. I want help cleaning up all the mess that potty-training leaves behind.

I was so frustrated I had to put him to bed for a nap (he quickly fell asleep) and go sit out on the lanai. I felt so angry. I can’t believe history is repeating. Here I am, a perfectly nice lady, stuck with kid number two who refuses to do a number two. He most likely will be nearing four years old before he decides it’s time. Exactly like his brother before him. Ugh!!!

I called Mad Dog at work and let loose a tirade of frustration. He listened patiently and said, “You’ll break this one, too. You broke the first two (meaning himself and Full Speed), you can do it again.”

Until that happens, I have to let certain things go (like potty-training) and muster the strength to continue to battle it out with T.Puzzle (and keep Full Speed in check, too). Raising two boys is not a walk in the park. It’s more like a full-on sprint while dodging heavy, artillery fire (and poop, too!).

children, potty training

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Broccoli of Times

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It seems little T.Puzzle is showing signs that he is headed toward catching on to this potty-training business. I’m trying to find the balance of pushing him (basically calling him out on his crocodile tears) and trying not to make the potty a huge power struggle that I will ultimately lose.

He hadn’t pooped at school or into the evening. As we began our day he still had kept his pants clean. I decided to strip him of all pants and undergarments because I know this is a technique to help kids learn when they have to go. I figured we would stick around home, I would pump him full of food, put him on the potty periodically and eventually something would happen.

I had T.Puzzle sitting on the toilet for one of his periodic opportunities and I decided to fold a basket of laundry. My thinking was that if I wasn’t hovering over him, he might be more inclined to go. Once the laundry was folded, I’d let him get down from the potty and take it from there.

I’m folding up the last shirt when I hear him began to wail. He is obviously upset as he comes booking out of the bathroom.

“Broccoli came out my butt!” he cries. Tears are rolling down his sad face which only emphasizes his distress. He has a hand clenching his backside as if in disbelief.

I rush to the bathroom and see that he has actually pooped. It’s tiny. And,… it’s green. It kind of does resemble broccoli.

I try to celebrate the amazing feat of getting his first poop in the potty. All he can focus on is that is was broccoli.

As I got him ready for naptime I said, “Keep your Thomas pants clean, okay?”

“Okay,” he said.

About twenty minutes into nap he starts wailing again. This time when I see him he yells, “Broccoli came out my butt, again!”

So, am I potty-training or is T.Puzzle simply hinting that he wishes to become a vegan?

humor, mommyhood, potty training

What I Know

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T.Puzzle has been doing well with his potty-training. After he got over the initial trauma of using the toilet (see previous post: Potty Distress), it seems to have clicked for him. At least the peeing aspect of training. He was dry all day at school and even told me when he had to pee recently. The pooping part, not so much. I’m not quite sure what to do about that.

I’m hoping because he has such reverence for his new Thomas the Train underpants, that maybe that will help him along. The first day we purchased his new undies, he carried them around all day and at times, tenderly held them in a loving embrace. I can’t fathom being that attached to underpants.

I have absolutely no idea what I am doing in terms of training him. I can guarantee you I will never write a book on how to potty-train children. I cringe at that the thought imagining all the angry letters from parents it would generate. My areas of expertise are more along the lines of how to turn any locale into a proper, smack-down wrestling ring or how to survive tantrums through denial, deep breathing and whiskey. It’s all about writing what you know, isn’t it?