The Champ

This morning when we woke up I convinced my daughter to come pee with me. She wears a diaper at night and usually wakes up dry but often refuses to go to pee first thing and then at some point during breakfast she just goes surreptitiously in her diaper. But I figure if I can get her in the habit of going first thing, then we'll be able to get her out of diapers altogether. Oh happy day.

The background to this story is that for the last six months my son has been going on and on about being the winner. When he finishes dinner first, hes' the winner. He wants to get in the car first so he can be the winner. He wants to get in the house first, get his bowl of cereal first, brush his teeth first. You get the idea. And his happiest moment is proclaiming this small victory. I win. It gets old. Though I think he's picked up that I'm not so much interested in his little competitions. He's started saying stuff like, it doesn't matter who eats fastest as long as we eat all of our vegetables so we can be strong and win at other things.

Where was I? Yes, the bathroom with my daughter. We both sit down on our respective potties and then there's that brief moment of silence and anticipation before anything comes out and we're both smiling at each other, when a faint tinkling sound is heard from the little potty. That's when she whispers to me, I win.

Behold, the poo poo

Well she's done it. Her Majesty has pooped in the potty. Here's how it all went down (or came out rather). After the final swim lesson and the congratulatory pizza party, we drove home. My daughter had been dry all day. She's been a champ actually. Never had any accidents at school. Only a few at home. And then the daily poop in the underwear thing. The other day she apparently was in the pool with my husband and I had forgotten to give him a swim diaper so he was on high alert asking her every three minutes if she had to go. She finally said poo poo and he hoisted her out. She asked to be in her towel, sat down on a chez lounge and did her business in her suit. So we figure she knows all about the sensation. She's just afraid of the end result.

We get home and she's playing in this little indoor tent and next thing I know she's yelling pee pee woo woo and it turns out she peed on Julio the rat and baby Julio, the smaller rat. So I get her out of what we now call the urinal and bring her into the bathroom. I strip her down and she and my son jump in the tub. Then he suddenly has to poop so he gets out and makes a dash for the toilet. Meanwhile I go outside to hose down the tent and I hear some noises and finally some crying. I rush back into the bathroom. The boy is still on the pot and my daughter is standing over her potty terrified because she has just pooped in it! Straight shot! So we're all clapping for her, including my son and she's shrieking. But we quickly wipe her and give her two chocolate raisins and soon she is equally joyous and everyone returns to the bath with an empty bowel and enjoys their own washcloths and no one has any tantrums and the world is peaceful.

A girl and her flower

This morning my daughter woke up and told me she needed to use the poppy (her term of endearment for potty) and when I took off her diaper it was DRY. She didn't pee all night. This is mind blowing. For a girl who sleeps so deeply that she unconsciously shimmies her way under her brother's bed all the way to the wall without waking up, it is remarkable. And that is why I am currently remarking on it.

Anyway, she peed on poppy and then yelled at me for trying to poor the pee into the toilet for her because she wanted to do it. I apologized. It's her poppy after all (can you tell that I love saying poppy?) Then she wiped herself and wiped her nose too. Oops. That was a teaching moment. Then tonight after her bath we put on her diaper and in the middle of good-night songs she asked for her poppy again, relieved herself and then told her Aba she didn't want her diaper anymore. Tonight she's going commando. Wish us luck.

And to be honest I don't think she's especially mature or tuned in to her excretory needs. I think she just wants better access to her vagina. Like many her age this is a girl who really loves the ole v'jay. So when she's not in a diaper she likes to lay back and "relax". Though sometimes with gusto. When she's in a diaper she often uses her belly button or her toes as a proxy but obviously nothing's as good as the real deal. You go girl.

Fine by her

I may have mentioned that my daughter had a very condensed terrible twos. It was really only a few months where she was an absolute shrew which, when you compare it to the two years we suffered with my son, well it's hardly even a stage. More like a blip. I don't doubt it will roar its ugly head again at any unforeseen point in the near or distant future (likely when we're in a crowded supermarket or airport terminal) but for now I'm really loving the break. It's so nice because everything appears to be OK with her. Do you want to have breakfast? OK. Do you want to go pee pee on the potty? OK. Sushi for dinner? OK. Can you let mommy sleep another hour? OK. It's insane. Does she even know what she's saying? I think so. I mean she has literally potty trained herself. Not entirely but she's quite happy to go pull her little potty off the shelf, plunk down and take a whiz. Then she gets herself some toilet paper, does a quick wipe and goes to wash her hands. It's alarming. And she's perfectly happy to go in her diaper too which is good because I was caught unprepared for this latest shift and I'm just not ready yet myself for her to be potty trained. Diapers are so easy...but I digress. The girl is really a champ. Even when I ask her to give a toy to her brother who is meanwhile in a sobbing heap on the floor because she has the princess make-up bag (which is hers).

Now I don't know if it's because she's the second child or she's a girl or it's just in her nature. Frankly I don't care. I never look a gift horse in the mouth. I will chalk it up to excellent parenting and reward myself with a Nutella pita sandwich.

Hygienic Polemic

My son says the same thing every time he goes pee and he'll continue to say it until he gets acknowledgment from me. And I hesitate to even bring it up for fear of judgement but I figure a). many of you have already read about how I dragged him by the armpit through JFK airport after he refused to go to the bathroom before our flight and then peed in his pants in the middle of the terminal and b). this little yarn pales in comparison to that one and c). this one really isn't my fault. I'm pretty sure it's my brother's fault. Where is she going with this...?

Every time (and I mean every single time without fail) my son pees in the toilet (which is like 92% of the time) he slaps his tushy to get the last drop out, he pulls his undies and pants up, and he carefully lowers the toilet seat. What a great kid! Doesn't leave the seat up like most men I know. Then he he leaves the bathroom and finds me to relay this sentence:

"Mommy, I don't have to wash my hands because I only touched the top (of the toilet)."

Now, I could have nipped this behavior in the bud when it first started a few months ago. He always washes after a poop (and I'm the one who wipes him) and he's not averse to hand-washing as he performs it many times a day just to be able to use the soap pump. And I still make him wash his hands in public restrooms. But I just never enforced the policy at home because I can't be bothered. And anyway I don't take responsibility since I'm pretty sure he picked this one up from his cousin who's 14 months older who naturally learned it from his father, my very own brother, who's been peeing standing up for upwards of 36 years so maybe he knows better than I. Or maybe boys can't help being gross. That is just who they are.

So my question goes out to the men who read this blog: a). are there any men who read my blog and b). is this normal? Do men wash after they pee? Seems like you could make the argument that it's not necessary. Although hand-washing several times a day does promote good general health. I'm not sure I can call this one by myself. I'm throwing it out to my extensive fan base though I reserve the right to delete any comments that put into question my parenting skills.

Dramedy of Errors

Last weekend during our camping trip to Point Reyes, friends of ours met us for a day hike near Tomales Bay. We hike with them a lot and their daughter is a week older than our son. The marriage has already been arranged and we have plenty of naked bathtub photos for the slide show during the reception.

It was nearing lunch time and we had decided on a one mile hike which would land us at the beach for a picnic. One mile is perfect for my son. At around two miles he starts to whine that,"this is too long for me..."

We start walking and about ten minutes into our journey, which I believe to be about the half way point, my son bends over to look at a giant caterpillar that is crossing the path. And as he's squatting there admiring the caterpillar, he suddenly looks up and says, "mommy, I'm making pee pee." But instead of jumping up to pull his pants down, I notice the now darkened spot on his jeans near his crotch slowly moving down his leg as he unloads a half gallon of urine all the while looking right at me.

Are you kidding me?

Him: I need to change my pants.
Me: I don't have any other pants with me.
Him: I want to go back to the car and change!
Me: We're already half way to the picnic. I don't want to walk all the way back to the car.

At this point he's starting to cry and I have to make a decision. Do we go back and essentially double our trip which will likely end in a tantrum? Or do I make him hike the next 15+ minutes in his wet pants which will likely turn into a tantrum? My friend offered her daughter's spare pants but my son would have nothing of that. He wanted his own clothes. And honestly, I usually have spares for him because even though he's been potty trained for a year, he still has accidents. But wouldn't you know the one friggin day I leave his spares in the car. And with a new crop of poison oak up to his head, there's no way he's hiking naked.

I decide we're moving forward. At first I try to keep my cool and convince him to wear his friend's pants. They were just a brown pair of pants from Target. He may actually have the same pair of pants. But he refused. And then sat down in the dirt sobbing. So I say I'm leaving and he can walk with Aba. More sobbing. I tell him I don't want to walk with him if he's sobbing. More sobbing. Finally after about twenty minutes of snotty heaving sobbing he finally stops crying. And then we're back to whining. Meanwhile, I'm thinking where the hell is this place? I thought you said a mile!?!?

I come to find out that midway through the journey our friend has taken a different path, a longer path, about two miles longer, to a different beach. So now I am SEETHING. Had I known this I would have made a different decision back when we were only ten minutes from the car. Now we were forty minutes from the car and presumably 15 minutes from the beach. I am almost about to burst into tears myself because now the poor kid probably has a rash between his legs, he's totally humiliated, he's exhausted from all the sobbing, I'm exhausted from hearing the sobbing, I hate our friends (friend, it was really the husband who made the covert trail redirect), I hate my husband for letting all of this happen, I hate myself for forgetting the spares and I hate that the return trip is uphill.

My son is now whimpering that it's too far for him. So I tell him that when we get to the beach he can take off his clothes and they'll get dry in the sun. And as we're walking I'm saying, don't worry honey, we're almost there. You're a really good hiker. You're doing a great job. Over and over, until I realize that I'm actually talking to myself. We're almost there. You can do this. You're a good hiker...

And when we do finally ch the beach, my son takes off his clothes as does his buddy and he is transformed back into a playful, cooperative, potty-trained three year old. After a few hours of relaxing we walked down the beach a short ways and took the original trail back which was, indeed, only one mile. And with pants and tears dried, it was an easy, drama-free trip back to the car.

Shit or get off the pot

I was an hour late for work this morning. Why, you ask? Because my son was sitting on the toilet.

My husband usually takes the kids to school and I pick them up but today he wanted to take his parents to the airport so we switched. Big mistake. They're just used to him dropping off and me picking up so when it's reversed, it's like the earth is suddenly spinning in the other direction. All is undone.

It didn't help that my son woke up late since he was up half the night for various reasons. He had to go poo poo. He lost his kitty. The stickers came off his hands. At one point I literally told him to get a grip (in response to the stickers coming off his hands). That actually seemed to work and he went back to his room and fell back asleep.

So he woke up late and my daughter's been a little unwell. It started when we switched her to milk a week before her first birthday (which was Friday!) and she started having a little bit of the runs. It was just half milk half formula, but something was not quite right. And then she spent half the night barfing after her first birthday party, likely having to do with the yellow cake and chocolate frosting cupcake she gobbled. We finally decided to take her off milk for a little while to see if her stomach would settle before we reintroduce. She may also have a stomach bug. Who the hell knows because my mother-in-law was also barfing the day before she left. Maybe it's my cooking? Nah.

And as much as I could I hurried my son along so that I could get to work by 9:00. But he wasn't much interested in breakfast and kept complaining that he had a tummy ache. So I sat him on the toilet and he spent about twenty minutes taking a dump. Indeed he got a lot of it out. So I wiped him, washed hands, flushed and got him into his clothes. My daughter by now is beside herself. She's also teething which doesn't help but she just could not stop crying, even when I was holding her. So my policy is that if they cry even when you're rocking and holding them, then why bother? Put 'em down. So I did and she went back to sleep. My son then asked again to sit on the potty. So he sat for another twenty minutes, this time with no output. I was starting to get annoyed because it was clear that I was going to be late for work. He finally hopped off, I woke up the baby and just as we were all ready to go, he grimaced and told me his belly hurt him and he needed to make a poo poo. So back he went on the potty. By now my daughter is awake and disoriented. She was gnawing on her own hand when, transformed into a rabid dog, she took a big bite out of my shoulder. Easy Dracula! I jumped and yelled NO! which totally startled her so she made the boo boo face and started crying again. And still my son is sitting dangle-footed on the pot. I told him to hurry it up but that made him cry. So I apologized. By the end of his session he'd been sitting on the toilet for 45 minutes. I mean, put me on a toilet for 45 minutes and I'll show you a hemorrhoid the size of a lemon. I have a feeling he had a sour belly and was just nervous about going to school for fear of having to do his business there. I totally get that, except that the toilets at his school are tiny and adorable. For toilets I mean.

We did finally manage to get out of the house and drop off was thankfully uneventful. But by the time I got to work I was exhausted. And depressed for having had to rush my son off the toilet, knowing that he had a belly ache, so that I could get to work. That sucks. Work sucks.

The 34 hour day

Almost two weeks have past since we returned from Israel and it's only now that I'm ready to remember the horror of the return flight. We'd had such a terrific time. Saw all of our people. Spent a day in Jerusalem, a day in Yafo, a few days in the Galil, a good amount of time with grandparents and family. And I myself had packed down an inordinate amount of shwarma. Even for me. And the weather was ridiculously good. Unseasonably warm for winter. Perfect fall weather actually. It was excellent.

And the kids had behaved beautifully. Especially our son, who is wont to ignore his grandfather, have tantrums in public and say no to nearly everything except chocolate milk. He was great in fact. Enjoyed his grandparents very much, played with the kids of our friends, and slept in several different locales. He even ate falafel, which I referred to as "falafel nuggets." Whatever works.

It was only in the last few days of the trip when our baby girl started having diarrhea that we started to get anxious about the trip home. At first I thought it was just a one-off thing. But two days and a very sore bottom later we knew we were looking at a nasty stomach bug, the likes of which we'd never encountered. Our son never had one. Well he had Rota virus but it was a mild case. So we were not prepared for what all would go down in the days to come. Or come up, as it were.

In fact it was already several days that she was not herself at all. Our perfect little baby girl became super grouch. Very whiny, very picky. It caught us so off-guard, I didn't even stop to think she could be ill. I just assumed our girl had gone to the dark side early and that we should just hunker down and prepare for the terrible twos. How idiotic is that.

So it was January 3rd when we woke up at 3:30 am to get ready for the drive to the airport for our 7:30 am flight home via New York. Twelve hours on a plane to New York - essentially ALL DAY LONG - which we knew, even with a best case scenario, would only yield a short nap or two. No hope for a five or six hour sleep. And the thing about a day flight going west is that it just keeps being day and more day and more day. It freaking never gets dark. So even with two healthy kids the flight is a bear. But a sick kid brings it to whole new level of discomfort.

About an hour into the flight our daughter seemed to be fairing well. She actually seemed starving, which she hadn't been in days so we took that for a good sign. We gave her yogurt, which she loves. Dairy in a sour belly. What the hell were we thinking. About a half hour after gobbling up a whole yogurt she started making faces and whining. Then crying and needing to be held. Not even her trusty rat Julio could soothe her. It was then that, with Julio close by, she barfed up all of her yogurt.

Suddenly there's vomit all over the floor, all over me, all over her, all over Julio and I'm running to the back of the plane yelling BARFING BABY! I NEED HELP! I get to the flight attendant station and they give me a paper towel. PAPER TOWEL??!! People I need a wet rag! I need a a tub of warm water! I need a biohazard disposal kit!

At this point I have to make clear that vomit is not my thing. I'm pretty good with other gross fluids, but vomit...not a favorite. So I'm trying to wipe her up and comfort her while taking off my sweatshirt and dealing with the rat who is now defiled. I bring her back to our seat and give her to my husband while I get her new clothes. Meanwhile my son has peed in his pants. Are you KIDDING me? So I get him new clothes too and now the plastic bio waste bag is nearly full.

Once everyone is changed and clean we begin to realize we have another ten hours on the plane and no rat. Julio is in the bio waste bag too because he is in a state of serious disrepair. And spare Julio is in the luggage hold. Note to self... So we take turns doing laps with our girl for the next six hours because she can't really sleep without her rat. And by now she's starving because we have nothing to feed her. She's even resorted to nursing again even though she weaned herself four days before. Anyway, we finally relent and give her a small bottle of formula though this time I drape myself in an El Al blanket. Half an hour later she's barfing all over me again. So we change her into the last set of clothes I have on the plane and while this is going on my son pees in his pants AGAIN!. This was not expected. I mean, the kid is potty trained for the love of jesus. Could someone please cut me a break here!

By now the bio bag is stuffed full of nasty clothes and my husband is now fighting waves of nausea - same bug apparently. We finally land at JFK and get through immigration. My husband runs to the toilet and I wait for the bags. I retrieve the spare Julio and things start to look up a bit. Hubby returns, I change into a new set of clothes, we get the kids into pajamas because even though it's 2 in the afternoon in New York, it's 9 pm for them. We come to find that our flight has been delayed two hours because of horrible weather in San Francisco so we camp out in a corner of the airport and after some chicken nuggets and french fries we all go to sleep for a few hours. The next flight is only six hours but by this point we are so wrecked I for one am basically hallucinating about my bed. I'm also fighting a gnarly sinus infection. By the time we finally get home and get everyone to bed we have been traveling for nearly 34 hours.

But the kicker is that no less than 30 hours later we are back on a plane flying to my mom's house for my friend's wedding, in which I am a bridesmaid. Bridesmaid of Frankenstein, more like it, between the bags under my eyes, and my zombie-like stare.

So I have to wonder if it was all worth it. I mean, we have friends in Israel whose kids have never even been on a plane let alone flown halfway around the world and back. It's such a small country, if you flew for an hour you'd be in Turkey. And I don't think they're lesser people for having missed the "flying with kids" experience. That said, and with all things being equal, I'd do it again. Even with the vomit I'd make the trip again. Time with grandparents is precious and the memories created, unlike the vomit stains, last a lifetime. People joke because my husband's first initial is M and mine is S. Together we're S&M. But it's the truth. We are a glutton for punishment - both inflicting and suffering. Bring it on, I say.

Is this legal?

The IKEA Incident - Part II

We set up the mattress in our room because there's no space for it in his room yet with his toddler bed still set up. At least he seems to be excited about the bed if jumping is any indication. But as we're getting him into his pajamas I realize that I don't have a mattress cover or any kind of plastic thingy to put under the sheets in case he has an accident. So I rationalize to myself that he hasn't had an accident at night for several months and I'll just put a little quilted blanket underneath him and it will be fine.

But of course, this whole experience has been everything but fine and the poor kid probably still has some left over resentment for having been made to leave his shopping cart upstairs so at 5 am I wake up to his crying. He's peed all over his new bed.

I know that it is my fault for not protecting the bed and that he is only three and three year olds have accidents but why now? Why tonight? Why on the new bed? Pissed off about tiny tim and the shopping cart? Don't take it out on the bed! I let him know I wasn't pleased. Not my finest moment.

So he's back to sleeping on the floor with his old green bambi blanket and his mattress is stripped and leaned up against the wall, a pile of laundry for me to do sitting in the hallway. I deserve it. I am a crap mom sometimes. I was such a good mom before I had kids.

Mommy dearest moment

There's nothing worse than when you're having what you thought was an anonymous "mommy dearest" moment in a public place and it turns out that someone you know, or will know, is watching.

On the way home from our family reunion last week we had to catch an 8:30 am flight out of JFK which meant leaving my grandmother-in-law's house at 6 am to return the car and check in with enough time. We woke the kids up and they were fine. Put them in the car in their pajamas. No problem. My husband drops us off at Departures, piles all of our luggage inside, and then takes the car to the rental place while we wait for him.

At about 6:45 my son tells me he has to pee. I tell him he can either hold it or go pee pee in his pull-up. I know that was probably confusing but what else could I do? I couldn't leave our stuff. I couldn't leave my seven month old to watch the bags. I couldn't schlep everyone into the ladies room. And my husband was still at-large.

He finally returns and we put the kids in their clothes and I ask my son if he wants to go pee pee and he says no. Meanwhile he never went in his pull-up and now he's in underwear. Nevermind. We check in, get through security. Now it's nearly 8:00 and my son still has not peed but now he's agitated since he has had to take his shoes off for security AND put his kitty cat in through the x-ray machine. Now everything is no. NO! NO! NO!

Me: Honey, do you want to go pee pee now?
Him: NO!
Me: Sweetie, I know you have to go. It's better to go now than have to go in the little potty on the plane.
Him: NO! I don't have pee pee.
Me: Just come with me to the toilet and try to go.
Him: (screaming and kicking) NO!!!!!

I tried to get him to go and he made a scene. On our way back to where my husband was standing he went limp and refused to walk and of course I refused to carry him. You think YOUR angry muchacho?! I'm about to whip out the wire hangers... So he's screaming and I have him by the armpit, dragging him back to our gate. And he's shouting, YOU'RE HURTING ME! and I'm saying, in Hebrew, thinking that it's okay since no one can understand me, I don't give a rat's ass if this is hurting you. I know. Very mature. So then my husband takes over and brings him to the men's room where he refuses to take off his pants and instead pees on himself.

My son returns and he's wet and now I have to change his clothes in the middle of the terminal because our flight is leaving and I'm telling him, again in Hebrew (the secret code language) that he will not open his mouth for the entire flight. And he will listen to and obey my every command. He's sobbing and I'm this close to having a major come-apart.

We get on the flight and I say I'm sorry for yelling at him and dragging him and he says he's sorry and now we're friends again. End of story. Until six hours later when we're at baggage claim and we run into a friend of a friend - Israeli - who's picking up his Israeli friend, who was just on our flight. Did your son manage on the flight without any more accidents?

I used to see parents, in airports or department stores or parking lots or wherever, dragging their kids around, screaming at them, and think what an awful mother. She's just teaching her kid that yelling is acceptable. She should just listen to her child. People who don't like kids or can't control their tempers, shouldn't have kids... What an idiot I was.

All of that is true but in the moment you become a toddler yourself and then you both spiral into a dark and chaotic place where dragging is acceptable and so is name-calling and threatening. It's an ugly place. And if you're me, you make your threats in a foregin language hoping that none of the other adults within earshot will realize just how pathetic you are.

Until a hebrew-speaking friend of a friend's friend shows up at baggage claim to hold you accountable. And you're left only with the shame of your actions, a migraine, six feet of luggage and the hope that next time you'll remember that you're the adult and that your three-foot companion is just trying to figure it all out.

Potty chronicles continued

Just when we thought we were in the clear, our son has begun to have accidents again. A friend of mine told me to expect this but we were hopeful. And foolish. I made the mistake of putting my son in his underwear at night. He'd been dry at night for nearly a month so I thought, what the hell, right? Better if he's in underwear. He'd started waking me up at night to take him to go pee because he couldn't get his diaper off and on again. In his underwear he's a free agent. Fully independent. Pees standing up like the big boys.

We did it one night. Success. Second night aba put him to bed and unaware of my latest decision, put him in a diaper. Third night, back to undies.

Right around 5am he comes padding into the guest room (I'm sleeping there while we sleep train our daughter) holding a pair of socks and wearing only his pajama top. He gets really close to my head and whispers, I made a pee pee on the carpet (he sleeps on the floor - that's a whole other post).

Apparently it woke him up, he stripped down, went to the closet and grabbed for the only clothing he can reach which are his socks and came to me for help with rest. I was so impressed by his efforts I totally forgot about the reason for them.

Then the next day he peed in his pants twice. Just plain forgot to go on the toilet. What is that? That never happens to ME. I realize he's new at this but I mean once you learn a concept how do you forget just like that? When I learned how to drive a manual shift, it took a few days but then I got it. A month later I didn't suddenly forget how to put in the clutch?! I did back the car into a gas pump three days after getting my license however. I guess we all have accidents.

Mother of Invention

Sorry to all (both) of you dedicated readers. My family went camping last week so I was incommunicado. It was a superb trip replete with volcanic fields, cascading waterfalls, canned food from Trader Joe's, s'mores, hide and seek in the forest, emerald (freaking cold) lakes, and a lot of dirt. Our baby girl had a touch of the croup when we left (she'd caught it from big brother) which made her a snotty, barking, and wretched mound of fevery baby flesh for the first half of the trip. But then it subsided and she was a happy camper too. Or at least she humored us. But it was our capricious son who took camper of the year award. He was a joy. Played hard all day, did his share of trail walking, ate like a champ and slept 11 hour nights inside his big boy sleeping bag in a tent for four days without a peep. Well, one yelp when he fell into the crevasse between the blow up mattress and the tent at 5am and couldn't get out, but that's happened to me and it's indeed frightful. Especially when you're dreaming about being sucked through the drain at the bottom of a pool by a great white shark...but I digress.

And thanks to a moment of maternal genius, he even found the courage to poop in the woods.

I was worried that we would have another lavatory incident that would set us back months when he saw those outhouses. Truthfully they were pretty nice outhouses with real toilet seats, just no flush. But he walked in there and was appalled. He doesn't understand how to only breathe through his mouth. So he refused. He even told me he didn't have to go anymore. But I knew he had to go because when he has to go he gets nervous and starts to pace and dart his eyes around. But there was nothing I could do to get him in the outhouse short of brute force, which I knew would end with me covered in pee pee and a son with an anal complex. So I relented, we packed into the car, and left for our hike.

Quarter mile into it my son starts to get twitchy and kvetchy again. I knew it was time. I told him we would go poo poo in the woods like bears. He just had to squat down and I would hold him. We could growl like bears too if he wanted. He wouldn't do it. By now he was starting to cry and pace. I said he could sit on my lap (what the hell was I thinking?). He said no. But then a few seconds later he asked to sit on my lap. Now there was no turning back. So I found a big fallen log (so metaphoric), sat down with my legs wide apart and scooped him up with my hands clasped under his knees so he was sitting like a swing between my legs. Lo and behold, the kid actually pooped. And none of it on me. It was my greatest hour. And his.

King of the Potty

Well our son is potty trained. And it only took two weeks really. Two weeks and nine months. I made the mistake of listening to a colleague of mine at work who potty trained her three boys using an intensive behavioral modification method. She said it would take a day. Read the book, she said. Buy the pee pee dolly. You'll be diaper free in no time. Not the case.

I made my first attempt last November when my son had just turned two. I was about six months pregnant and thinking it would be really super to only have to diaper one child. So I designated a weekend for potty intervention. I bought "Potty Training in less than a Day" or something like that, and I bought an anatomically correct doll named Paul who came with underwear, a diaper and a mini-potty. I bought all kinds of treats to reinforce positive behavior - brownie bites, popcorn, chocolate raisins. I bought a ton of chocolate milk. I made notes from the book to keep us on track. And my son was a pretty good sport for a while. But the constant asking, "do you have to go to the potty?" "Are your pants dry?" - I started getting a headache. And it was a beautiful day and he was desperate to go to the park. So we did and he peed on the slide. I gave up after he soaked the bed during his nap. I figured I'd try again after the baby was born. Which I did.

By then he was about two and a half and could follow directions better. Plus some of his friends from school had started using the potty. I bought him a new potty, which we called Baby Paul's potty. Whatever. He started peeing in it which was very exciting, but he was terririfed to poop in that thing. I didn't push the issue but I must admit I was getting pretty tired of pulling big poops out of his underwear. His teachers weren't thrilled about it either so I started sending him in pull-ups, those evil diaper substitutes that are twice as expensive and half as absorbent. Then, since he was basically wearing a diaper, he started wetting his pants again.

Anyway, we decided two weeks ago that we would just forget about the diapers and forge ahead with underwear. And it worked. We had a handful of accidents but for the most part the kid is now doing his business in a designated receptacle. Even in public places. I bought a little fold-able plastic potty top that sits on a regular toilet to make the hole smaller (so tiny tushies don't fall in) with elmo and friends on there. He's willing to poop on elmo. Now he's even going by himself and taking down and pulling up his pants. So overall we're thrilled. Except for a few things...

I can't say I'm super happy about having to dump his poop in the toilet after he goes in the potty. First of all, it splashes and then I have to wipe down the toilet. It also stinks like all get out. It's amazing how much the water in a toilet really masks a lot of the smell. And the wiping isn't going that well. I can't get him clean enough. I ask him to bend over so I can be thorough but that feels like a little invasive. And then I have to clean the poop streaks off the potty. Nasty. And not to mention the pee which he insists dumping by himself. This morning he completely missed and poured a quart of piss on the far side of the toilet and all over the seat which I then had to mop up. And that's if it even goes in the potty. If I don't hold his penis down with my finger, he literally sprays straight ahead.

But he's trained. Gone are the days of diapers and Desitin - the last remaining vestiges of his short time as a baby. Another milestone achieved. Another notch on the belt of parenthood. Another reason to adopt a five year old next time around.

I love the smell of urine in the morning

I knew it was a bad idea. My husband was putting my son's pajamas on and asked if he could wear his elmo undies tonight. He'd been dry for the last five mornings so I figured, what the hell right? But then when I asked Mr. Underwear if he would sit on the potty for me before going to bed he started to whine.

Noooooo....I'm ti-yud. I want to go to sleep.

He had that pouty puss look and I was certain he'd wet his bed but I just could not be hassled to:
A). Wrestle with him onto the potty
B). Wrestle him out of his elmos and into a pull-up

Plus, he's always wiggly at bedtime so the idea that he might actually just go to sleep without a big production because he was, as he claimed, "ti-yud", well I just couldn't pass it up.

Indeed he was tired and went to sleep without a peep. Until 5am.

The horror. The horror.

I hear him bellowing, "I don't want it. I don't want it." The IT in this case referring to the liter of urine that he is now lying in. So I get annoyed and start lecturing him about how he needs to listen to mommy and go pee pee before he goes to sleep as I'm peeling off his wet pajamas and stripping his bed. Of course it was obviously my fault for not putting him back in his pull-up, but in the fuzziness that is 5am everything is his fault, or my husband's fault or god's fault.

One thing I know for sure, tonight is a pull-up night.