Potty Training Progress Report #463

After

close to two years,

many, many attempts,

an entire gallon of Simple Green concentrate (after I was tired of the smell of vinegar, our cleaner of choice),

pee in the corner,

pee in the furnace vent,

pee on each other,

pee on me,

pee on the floor,

(lots and lots of pee on the floor)

some more pee on the floor,

some poop on the floor,

poop on the walls,

poop on each other,

poop on the baby,

poop on me,

an exhausted carpet cleaner

and

a thoroughly,

completely,

and totally,

exhausted

Mommy-

we have

finally,

successfully,

completed the potty training process.

I am pleased to announce that the twins are fully,

completely,

and forevermore

potty trained.


(cue angel choir singing hallelujah, as the heavens open and shine the most glorious light)

Ahhhhhhhh....


I need a nap, a vacation, and a massage.

Bedroom Makeover 2010

This week, I learned that my darling Ben has inherited his father's creative streak. My husband is a doodler, the type who will completely cover his church bulletin with drawings and doodles during the sermon, and it actually helps him pay attention. Apparently, Ben decided to try that skill during nap time in my room.

I didn't notice his creation right away, until I went to bed that night and found a beautifully decorated faux-headboard running the width of our king-sized bed, and about two and a half feet tall. The nice thing was he decided to tie the elements of the room together by creating a similar swirly pattern on our sheets as well.
Such a nice thing to do.

And I know you are all insanely jealous of out beautifully matched blue-sheets-with-green-wall-color-and-nicely-accessorized bedroom. I know, I worked hard on it.

Unfortunately the wall was impossible to photograph, as the glossy wall with the light ink wasn't something the camera could focus on. I was able to capture a bit of the creation, so you will have to imagine this on a much larger scale.
And yes, that pen did gouge into the wall. Texture is important in decorating, right?

Regardless of the thoughtfulness of the decor, the lesson had to be taught, so the next morning I put Ben to work removing his creation. Of course, pen does not come up easily, so it took a bit of scrubbing on his part.
And a bit of whining.
OK, a LOT of whining.
But still I persisted, knowing that this would be a good way for the lesson to sink in.
I helped him for a while, so that he would see that a lot of scrubbing in one spot would, in fact, remove the pen, and then left him to cry clean on his own.

After quite a bit of sobbing time, there was quiet coming from the room. I decided to go in and check on the progress of the pen-removal and found this.

Well played, Tom Sawyer, well played.

I have to say, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers work wonders at removing everything from walls, including ball point pen.

And, well, paint.

Of course, I didn't notice the paint-removal until I re-entered the room and saw that the glossy paint had lost all of it's glossiness during the pen-removal process.

And some of it's a tad lighter than the rest.

I never liked the color of our bedroom anyway. And I certainly needed something to do with my time. I've been getting bored with nothing to do lately, so a painting project is just the right thing.

I'm so lucky my kind, caring son was willing to show my what to do with all my loads of extra time.

Today's blog is written by Emma

i am gna go to the gren born and i am goeto rit a son from emma.

Translation: I am gonna go to the Green Barn and I am going to write a song. From Emma


(Note to self: teaching writing by having your child blog while sitting behind her and cutting her hair might seem like a good idea, but in reality, she tilts her head to the left when she's concentrating. It doesn't work well.)

Why I Beat My Husband Yesterday

"Wait, what?!? You're kidding, right? You did not just let Emma take the boys potty in a public bathroom by themselves!!"

I didn't hang around to find out the answer, but ran to the bathroom where I found my wonderful sister-in-law wide-eyed and looking a bit panicked, she had seen the kids go unaccompanied into the women's bathroom and wisely decided to follow. However, as she is not actively involved in the potty-training process, was able to be convinced by Emma that it was perfectly OK for them to all go into different stalls, where they promptly locked the doors and started crawling under the dividers. At which point I walked in to find unruly children, screaming and laughing behind locked bathroom stall doors.

And all of this at my great aunt's memorial service.

Luckily, the sternness of Mom's voice can command children to do the right thing, and I managed to order the kids to unlock the doors, finding that although Grant had gone into the stall dry, the excitement of the whole thing caused him to have an accident.

And I found Ben holding a nicely wrapped "package". You, know, the kind of "package" that is usually found in the little receptacle box in women's stalls. Yeah, that kind of package.

I went out to glare at my husband and get a change of clothes for Grant. Then back into the bathroom for some clean-up. By the time we were done, I was mad and frustrated.

And I'm pretty sure my sis-in-law was exhausted as well. Seriously, they don't have kids yet, and as I'd really like to have some nieces and nephews from them, I think I need to shelter them from this kind of child-exposure, and limit their kid-time to times where the kids play with them nicely and tell them they love them while giving hugs and snuggles and sweet smiles.

In Marty's defense, Emma told him she could take the boys potty and just ran off with them. He said by the time it clicked that it was a bad idea, they were gone into the women's bathroom and there was nothing he could do. Which makes sense, but I beat him anyway. Just for fun. Love you, honey!

Stuff-is

I love three-year-old babble.

The boys have their treasured things, things that are most coveted and change with the mood of the day. But they love carrying their chosen items around, and they are called their "stuff-is". It all started when we were getting ready to move onto the next thing, and I'd ask, "Do you know where your stuff is?"

So now, their small collection of trains and cars that they carry with them are their "stuff-is". These things are fiercely protected when they have to put them down to go potty or to time-out. With this many kids, they have to fight for what they want.

This morning, a still-sleepy Grant came out of his room and settled on the couch, sleepies still creating a fog around his mind, and his hair tousled in a most adorable way. I met him on the couch to cuddle. I settled in one one end, he on another. I looked at him, and he smiled at me in his sleepy, soft, innocent way.

"Hey, buddy," I said, "do you want to come cuddle me?" He rubbed his eye with his fist, nodded sleepily and with a smile, crawled into my lap. I noticed a couple of trains beneath him, and Ben was on his way over with an eye on them, so trying to avoid the inevitable fight I reminded him, "Grant, don't forget your stuff-is."

My sweet boy looked up at me from his snuggle spot in my lap. "Mommy, you're my stuff-is," he responded, and snuggled deeper.

Oh, the things that make your heart melt and bring tears to your joyful eyes.

This is why it's all worth it.

Potty Training Progress Report

Holy freakshow, Batman.

I went into yesterday feeling pretty confident about our progress. At the end of yesterday's post, I mentioned that Ben had peed, and them tried to sit in Emma's lap.

It all went downhill from there.

Yesterday was one of those days where everything that could get covered in pee, did. It was bad.

At one point yesterday, Grant, without any prompting from me, 'felt the urge' and went into the bathroom to do his business. This is a good thing, and a very important step in the right direction. However, the good part about that was quickly negated when he simply stood in the middle of the bathroom floor with his undies on, and peed and pooped. Then, since he was done, he walked out of the bathroom, still wearing his poop-filled undies and dripping pee down his legs. He went into the living room, where I found him playing tracks and trains with his siblings, a trail of piles and puddles from him to the bathroom.

Yeah.

They are supposed to hate the feeling of sitting in poop and that's how the whole 'training thing' gets done. Of course, my kids defy the odds.

I did make some progress on organizing the boys' room yesterday, cleaning our drawers of stuff that is too small and stuff that can be put away till fall. I know, it's kinda late to be pulling the cooler-weather stuff out, but our weather has been so crazy here lately I haven't dared do it earlier. Anywhoo, I got a lot of it done, and left the box on top of the boys' dresser during nap time.

Big mistake.

They took it off the dresser, and dumped it. They strew the nicely folded clothes all over the room, and then peed on them.

I did not know this was happening, as I was shampooing the carpets because of Grant's morning poop-fest.

So not only did I not get anything done, I created more loads of laundry for myself.

Perfect.

The boys never napped yesterday. Drew fell asleep in my arms before lunch, and slept for about forty minutes, part of which was on the couch as I was cleaning up yet another puddle of pee. He did not nap again at naptime, leaving a room filled with three screaming boys, two of whom were destroying everything possible.

And then, you know, peeing on it.

Today is going to be better. For one thing, it cannot get worse. For another, my wonderful brother-in-law Dan has offered to take the kids for a while this morning so that Holly and I can go out and do something, anything, without kids to save me from a life of padded walls and anti-psychotic medications.

Sigh of relief.

I am tired, and frustrated, and ready to have this done. I am so stinking mad about this whole thing, I am going to get them potty trained if it kills me.

I just hope it doesn't drive me over the edge of insanity first.

Tips and Tricks, Potty Training Twins, Take seventy-five

If you have a very successful day on Monday, with each child only having one small accident, you will feel like a million bucks and be ready and waiting Tuesday morning to continue your quest to save fifty-six thousand dollars a month on pull-ups.

You will expect your children to feel the same way, and wake up ready to continue to fill their sticker charts and feel good about their accomplishments.

You would be wrong.

Because there is a good chance that your children will wake up on Tuesday, thinking that potty training was Monday's fun thing to do, and be ready to move on to something else.

They might refuse to go potty.

They might sneak pull-ups on instead of undies when you are not looking.

They might have screaming fits where they throw themselves on the floor in distress at even the thought of sitting on the potty again.

You might need to take a day off and re-group.

Well, you might not need to take a day off and re-group, but if you are PMSing and cranky, it might be in the best interest of all involved to take a day off and drink re-group.

It is a good idea to come up with a game plan for Wednesday, and sneak into their room while they are sleeping and hide every pull-up. Then start again Wednesday, refreshed, less PMS-ey, and ready to go.

Don't give them a choice. Don't fight with them, just tell 'em that this is the way it's gonna be, and go for it.

And when they cry, saying "babies go potty in diapers, are you a baby?" will work on one of them, but not both. One might want to be a baby, so be prepared with the follow up, "well, you can be a baby if you want to. Babies take naps right now, so let's go for a nap, OK? Well, either you are a baby or you're not, so take a nap or go potty. It's your choice." It might work. I'm just sayin'.

If you feel especially insane, you might even take the potty training twins out running errands for three hours with you in undies.

Well, take them with you, and take them in undies. Not take them with you in undies. I mean, I wore shorts.

Anywhoo.

I packed four beach towels, five garbage sacks, fifteen extra pairs of undies (for the boys, not for me), seven pairs of shorts, a pack of baby wipes and a costco-sized pack of sanitizing wipes. Oh, and of course, the potty that stays in the van.

I definitely recommend putting a garbage bag in their car seat, just in case. Your drive will be a lot less stressful that way.

Hey, while you're already insane, go through the car wash to see of they really can hold it. It's a good test.

And then scream like a banshee when they stay dry. Watch their faces when you scream like a banshee in excitement. It's priceless.

Yes, they completed all three hours of errands, and stayed dry the whole time. However, upon two minutes of returning home, Grant peed on his foot.

Baby steps. And it wasn't in the van, so I'm good.

Anywhoo.

Back to potty training tips.

You might notice the boys' room start to smell a bit... off.

If you are like me and don't have much of a sense of smell, it might take you a while to discover that no, it's not just due to the fact that it's summer and it's hot, but yes, there is a corner where the boys have been peeing.

Yup, the boys are peeing in the corner of their bedroom.

I know Holly's busting a gut right now.

Hardwood floors are great for cleaning up pee, except when that pee has been sitting there a while. Then it really stinks.

Haha, get it? Stinks. A little potty humor for ya. I know, no one else is laughing at that one, but I'm a-giggling over here.

Again, anywhoo.

The thought will cross your mind that several times, the boys have had accidents in their room and gotten their undies wet, but you never found the puddle. Then you will realize that they have been peeing in a corner without getting un-dressed first.

This might make you really question the intelligence level of these children.

You might decide not to think about it. It's easier that way.

If you have a Holly, she might take pity on you and bring you a ton of new stickers for the boys' sticker charts, and she might even bring you a new Scentsy to make your house smell a bit less like pee.

If you don't have a Holly, you might want to get one. She is a lifesaver. I don't know how to tell you to go get one, mine showed up when I got married and thankfully has been around ever since.

I love her. And, I love my new Citrus Sun Tea Scentsy. Do you know Scentsy? If not, go here and see what all the fabulousness is about.

Each boy had one accident yesterday. If they go a day without accidents, the get a sticker in the special spot on their sticker chart. Seven dry days in a row gets them a fancy dinner with mommy.

Grant wants the Nuthouse. Ben wants McDonalds.

Ya know, cuz it's so fancy.

(OK, I was about to wrap this post up, feeling pretty darn good about the progress we have going on here. But then Ben tried to sit on Emma's lap, and Emma screamed, "He's wet!" So not only did Ben pee, but he ignored it and sat on his sister. Sigh.)