Potty Training

So my two year old is potty trained.  I know.  I am the best mom in the world!  After only one day my son was completely potty trained!

He's going to hate me for this.

Brahahahahahahahaha!!!  Whew!  That was hilarious.  For a second there I felt like all those annoying moms on Facebook that talk about how wonderful their little baby Johnny is doing in his astronomy class.

Well, the truth is that my two year old is actually potty trained and it happened pretty quick but that had nothing to do with my awesome parenting skills.  In fact, it was quite the opposite.  The reason he's potty trained at all is because that I waited so long to start training him that he just up and did it his damn self!

My son (The main character of this blog) has been the most difficult child.  If you've been reading this blog for at least a couple of weeks you will realize that every other entry is some catastrophe involving my son and the ER.  So let me look back on his short and turbulent little life.

He's only two.  In the two years of his existence he has cried non stop for half of them and then became so clingy that I told people he was from the planet ClingOn with his given name being spandex.  Then finally some where around 22 months became a semi normal, functioning and dare I say happy two year old.  Minus all the times he's tried to kill himself.

Around this 22 month mark, my son starts showing signs of being ready to potty train.  Too bad for him!  I was in no condition to take on that kind of conquest.  We had just brought home our youngest and we were just trying to get thought those early crisis months of bringing home a new baby so we could have some semblance of normalcy.

Besides, he wasn't even two yet!  That's just ridiculous.  Boys are supposed to be harder and my daughter didn't start till she was 2 and a half.  I've got loads of time!  But then it started to get pretty embarrassing.  He would start telling me when he wanted to be changed.  No problem.  He just doesn't like being in a wet diaper.  Doesn't mean anything.  I got time!

Then he would sit on the little play potty with his clothes on and say he had to go.  How cute!  He's pretending.  I've got time.  And then I did something that made me realize that I really got to get my act in gear.

He comes to me and says, "Mommy, I have to pee"  and like the mother of the year I am, I reply with "You've got a diaper on, just go in your pants."

...

Mommy fail.

Ok, Ok!  I can't fight it anymore.  So I got all ready for the dreaded potty training.  I got a jar of M&M's and placed them in the bathroom.  I got reward toys.  And I even got a super cool "Mater" toy for when he poops.  I am ready!  Let's do this thing.

So that night I go out and my mom watches the kids.  I'm not even gone for twenty minutes and my mom calls.

"Is Hawkins potty trained?"
"No, we haven't even started."
"Well, I don't think your going to have to do much work.  He just peed in the potty... by himself."
"What?!  Just like that?"
"I guess.  He's asking for his Cars toy.  Can I open them for him?"
"Uh... yeah... I guess so."

Yes, that's poop.  And His Mater Truck.

I hang up the phone in a daze.  My son is potty trained.  My son is potty trained?  My son is potty Trained!!  It's been 6 weeks and he's only had one accident!  Okay, now I'm just rubbing it in.

Don't get me wrong.  I know the horrors of potty training.  There was a time where I didn't leave the house without my daughters potty.  And we would make frequent stops to pee in the car.  It was kind of a pain, not to mention the smell.  My poor car will never be the same.

The moral of the story is that sometimes those experts are right.  If you just let them wait until they are ready then it's not a chore, because they know and understand and want to do it for themselves.  Or maybe God just took pity on me and figured I'd probably lose my mind all together if I had two kids in diapers.  Either way, I'm elated!

Besides for the amount of crap that kid gave me for first year of his life, I think I deserves to have something come easy for once.

Antenella

Let Me Tell You About My Day

Do you ever feel like everything happens all at once?  Do you ever go through the day just wishing you could get a chance to breath?  Or you look at your calendar trying desperately to find the next moment that you won't have 3 birthday parties, a meeting, a doctors appointment and swim class all on the same day?   I feel like being a stay-at-home-mom (or a parent in general) keeps you in a constant state of crisis mode.  

It's not even the never ending list of responsibilities and deadlines and playdates.  It's the constant chaos that ensues every moment of the day!  I feel like i'm forever jumping from one catastrophe to the other.   For example...

So, it's a Thursday night and the hubby and I have a church meeting to get to.  Not just any church meeting.  It's one of those "fall-in-love-with-your-spouse-all-over-again" kind of meetings.  So it would probably be a good idea if I showed up on time, preferably with my spouse.

I have exactly 1 hour to get the kids bathed, dressed and downstairs with dinner in front of them.  Not to mention that in that one hour I should probably do something that would stop me from looking like the newest installment of the walking dead.

My hubby calls me from the road, "on my way!"  As I'm up to my ears in wet kids.  I don't know if you've ever tried to bath your kids in a rush.  I tend to do this pretty often.  It's usually just a matter of taking the stank off of them before we have to actually be somewhere and look presentable.

For the most part my kids love bathes, that is unless you are rushing them.  Then they will make it the most tedious, frustrating, not to mention painful experience of your entire life.

It's when I finally get all of my precious baby angles washed and rinsed with only a gallon of water at my feet that I start pulling them out youngest to eldest.  As I am cleaning out all the bath toys from the tub some one from behind me yells "POOP!"

And no this was not an explicit outburst.  This was actual poop.  Not from my child that is actually potty training.  Oh no.  It's from the littlest one who seriously has the most foul poops I have ever had the opportunity to smell.  It's like something died inside her, but now it's out... and on my rug...

43 minutes and counting.

Now I've got everyone dressed and I'm rushing everyone downstairs.  I put on Netflix and let them destroy my living room as I make some quick pasta noodles.  When everything is done I seat each of them down at the table and rush upstairs to at least change out of my snot and now poop covered shirt...

16 minutes and counting.

Yes, yes, I'm a terrible mom, I left them at the table while they were eating.  Well, not only is it dangerous because someone could choke it is also one of the dumbest things to do after giving your kids a bath.

Side note:  Kids are like dogs.  Don't ever be offended when someone tries to compare your kids to their dog because you have no idea how accurate that comparison actually is.

You know when you give a dog a bath the very first thing they do is find something disgusting to roll around in?...

Are you starting to see where I'm going with this?

I rush back downstairs not even 4 minutes later (11 minutes and counting) and my youngest.  (the same one with the poop) has smeared herself with pasta.  She has made her self a living canvas and the pasta, her paint brush.  So now I'm throwing her back into water, at the sink this time. ('cause, I ain't hauling her butt back upstairs to the bathtub) I hose her down and dry her off with one of the hand towels hanging from the oven.  I then release her into the play area with nothing but a diaper on.

1 minute...

As I'm hosing off myself and the walls I hear shattered glass from the playroom.  This is where we brilliantly placed our Christmas tree this year.  "Get away from the tree!" I yell.   I figured the twins probably ran into the tree and something fell.  No biggy.  Don't get mad.  They're just kids and things are bound to break.  Besides they haven't been in there for more then 30 seconds how much damage could they possibly do.

*Crash*
My phone buzzes.
*Crash*
My sitter is running late.
*Crash*
Great, I literally have 15 minutes to get to my destination which is 20 minutes away.
*Crash* What the hell are they doing in there?

I walk into the playroom to find my son and my youngest sitting in the middle of the playroom grabbing bulbs off the christmas tree and smashing them on the floor.  Peals of laughter coming from their innocent faces.

The floor is covered in broken glass...
I lose my schmit.  0 minutes left...

I'm yelling, I'm screaming, I'm swearing, I'm making sure my kids aren't bleeding to death from the number of wounds they could have picked up from all the little shards of glass.  (They were fine by the way,  if you don't count the spankings I gave them.)  And as I am threatening to run away to Mexico were I would live out the rest of my days as a dancing girl tied to nothing but the wilds of the night, the door bell rings.

In walks my beautiful, young, christian babysitter.  I'm pretty sure she was pretending to not have heard the ranting that was going on behind my front door.  That's so sweet of her.

I give her the run down of the evening and thank her over and over again and tell her what a life saver she is and rush out the door to the cry of my screaming kids and jump into my husbands waiting car.

When we are out of our community my hubby turns to me and asks me in the most cheery of voices: "So how was your day?"

Hulk smash

Antenella