Master P(ee)

Sometimes you just get a feeling about your child. I had a feeling Sam was going to be harder to potty train than Ben. I'm not completely sure why, but something about Sam's personality was telling me that keeping his underwear dry and clean wouldn't be at the top of his daily agenda.

However, as we approached our three-day potty training boot camp I gave myself pep talks and by Day 1 I was feeling very confident. It worked extremely well with Ben. I had no real reason to expect less from Sam.

On Day 1 Sam had 44 accidents. Part of the reason is because with this method you give them A LOT of liquids, so they have plenty of opportunities to feel their bladder be full. You want them to recognize that feeling and know that means "get to the bathroom."

On Day 2 he had 15 accidents, which was major progress! And he pooped in the potty that morning! Ben didn't poop until the very end of Day 3, but Sam's such a prolific pooper I was hoping he'd learn faster, and he did! We were so excited and proud. He even got up during the night and asked to use the potty! It was working!

On Day 3 he had 9 accidents. More progress! And all of his "accidents" at this point were merely getting his underwear a little wet, rather than peeing outright all over the floor. Plus, the only night he wet his bed was the first night. I was so delightfully surprised he was keeping his bed dry.

Oh, did I mention that Ben was out of town for all of this? So Heath and I could give our full attention to Sam, and he wouldn't be distracted.

Again, I had a feeling that things wouldn't go so smoothly once Ben was on the scene. *Sigh*

Unfortunately for my sanity this time around, Ben was really easy to potty train. After those initial three days, Ben was great. He had completely dry days that first week. He only pooped in his underwear a couple times and to this day I could count on one hand the number of times he's wet the bed. But he also didn't have an older brother distracting him.

It's now been seven days and Sam hasn't had one dry day. We've gone through 4-6 pairs of underwear and shorts a day, which has led to the new rule that if Sam's in the house he's not wearing shorts. And, very unfortunately, he only has about a 50-50 track record for getting poop into the potty.

I'm very proud of Sam because this is a huge change in his life and obviously he has made a lot of progress since the beginning. But it's still exhausting and disgusting and hard. Using this method you go cold turkey with diapers and never look back, so we must soldier onward. I just wish my feelings hadn't been right this time.

Gross v 2.0

I had one of the grossest moments of my motherhood to date on Friday morning, which is saying something since Ben once puked in my hand and I also watched him eat cat vomit.


Sam woke up with a cough and a runny nose. We started the day like we always do, me complaining that he wakes up too early and him whining for a bottle. After about 15 minutes he was done eating and we sat on the couch a little longer, waiting for his burp. What I got instead was a cough which resulted in literally half his bottle being expelled from his body onto me, the couch and the floor. I have NEVER seen a child spit up that much. My shorts and underwear were soaked, there was a huge wet spot on the couch and a puddle on the floor. For a few seconds my mind couldn't even comprehend what had just happened and I sat completely still. Then I sighed and started mopping everything up with a woefully inadequate burp cloth.


By the way, Sam? Not a spot on him.

And now, the exciting conclusion...

Wednesday night we went to a picnic with some of our old classmates. About half the people have kids, so we met in a pavilion right by a playground. Ben was having a great time playing while we were catching up with old friends. Then he ran up and said he had to use the bathroom. I was very glad he did, because sometimes when he's running around with other kids he's too excited and just forgets until it's too late. I happily accompanied him to the bathroom, where he pooped and then we went back to the party.

About five minutes later he came back and said he had to poop again. I was a little frustrated, since I've been trying to express to him that he needs to get ALL the pee and poop out when he uses the toilet, so we don't do this back and forth dance for 20 minutes. However, he was listening to his body, so once again we trudged to the bathroom and once again he pooped.

Five minutes after THAT he was back again. This time I was very frustrated and I said I would take him, but I finished up a conversation before we went. By now I should know better, right? I do anything for my own pleasure at my own peril. And finishing up that conversation meant that BEN POOPED IN HIS PANTS.

WTF, internet? Seriously, WTF? My almost-four-year-old who has NEVER ONCE POOPED IN HIS PANTS in the year he's been potty trained POOPED IN HIS PANTS after having already gone twice in the last 15 minutes.

Am I getting too uppity? What's the lesson here? Why am I being tortured with poop?

So only three days after Sam's poop fireworks (see previous post) there I am, kneeling in a park restroom trying to wipe poop off Ben's underwear. Again I considered it for about two seconds before throwing the underwear away. I've NEVER thrown away clothes because of poop and then I did it twice in a matter of days.

Of course the kicker is that Ben, giddy from going commando in public, pulled down his pants to show another little girl that he didn't have any underwear. Awesome.

It's not a mommy blog if I don't talk about poop once in a while, so fasten your seat belts folks...

My baby has a super power! Sam is... STEALTH POOPER! Able to defecate and disguise the smell until the diaper is opened! Seriously, I'd say 60% of the time I never know Sam's pooped until I start changing his diaper. Have you ever been surprised by poop? It's not fun, in ANY context.

It doesn't help that there's no rhyme or reason to his "schedule." At this age Ben reliably pooped once a day, usually in the morning. Sam won't poop for a week and then it's like the excrement carnival came to town. And it's always at the most inconvenient times. At the playground, in the middle of a movie, on a long walk. Basically any time we're NOT AT HOME. At home we have an almost unlimited number of wet wipes. But, no, Sam wants to play Russian roulette and see if my feeble pack of wipes runs out at the zoo.

The worst was a few weeks ago. We were at a friend's wedding and I took Sam out of his car seat to feed him. I set him on the crisp, white tablecloth and scooted him back a little so he wouldn't tumble off. I'm sure you can see where this is going. I noticed a peculiar stain coming from his butt and sure enough, his diaper had leaked and I'd proceeded to smear it all over the place. So, Heath took Sam to the bathroom while I tried to clean up the mess at the table. I wiped and wiped at it, but it wasn't very effective, so eventually I gave up and just put a plate over it. On a completely unrelated note, I'm suddenly realizing why people might decide not to invite children to their weddings.

UPDATE: That was the worst when I started writing this post yesterday, but Sam has topped himself! The boy is nothing if not ambitious. We went to the pool yesterday afternoon (I can already hear your groans). After swimming I took the boys into the bathroom so Ben could go and I could change Sam into a dry diaper. I neglected to grab the wipes from my bag because Sam had taken a giant poop before we left the house (occasionally he throws me a bone and poops at home), so he couldn't POSSIBLY poop again, right? Horribly, horribly wrong. Do you know what's worse than white-wedding-tablecloth poop? Watered-down-pool poop. So I'm frantically grabbing paper towels, hoping Sam doesn't roll off the changing table and listening to Ben whine at me to pull up his wet swim suit. It must not have been comfortable having his butt wiped with dry paper towels, but Sam just grinned up at me the whole time. I'm sure he was thinking: STEALTH POOPER STRIKES AGAIN!

The Poop Dance

One of my very first blog posts was about how Ben always pooped while I was in the shower. Well, it's over two years later and yet somehow I find myself once again in that same position. The very act of me turning on the water seems to get his bowels moving. But it can't be easy. No, it has to be a drawn-out back and forth with several fake outs (intentional or not I'm unsure), that may or may not result in him actually pooping. Multiple times in the past several weeks I've had to jump out mid-shower and assist him. Let me tell you, it's an absolute treat to wipe someone's butt while you're naked and dripping wet.

Ben's still not totally comfortable pooping on the potty. We haven't had an actual accident in a week, but it's always this exhausting dance. And if he doesn't poop in the morning then all day I feel like he's a time bomb waiting to go off. Where will the explosion happen? The playground? Target? It's like a disgusting game of Russian Roulette.

Luckily he seems to have mastered pulling down his shorts and underwear. Pulling them back up is a different story, but getting onto the potty by himself is all I care about right now. At least then I can finish my shower.

Never leave a man behind... unless he's covered in someone else's urine

Ben's interest in trains has suddenly sky rocketed. It had been waning for a while, which made me regret his Christmas present - a huge train table that takes up half our living room. But all of a sudden last week he decided that the only thing he wants to do (besides eat mac & cheese and ride his tricycle to the park) is play trains. Fine with me. Most of the time he doesn't want me to participate so I can sometimes slip away and read or do dishes for a few minutes before he notices I'm gone. Then he comes looking for me saying, "Mommy, come play trains with me." But what that really means is, "Mommy, come sit on the couch and watch me play trains. No, you can't check Twitter on your phone or even put your feet up on the couch. Just sit and watch."

This means that various trains have been accompanying us around town. Well, last week we went to McDonald's and I had to change Ben's diaper before we ate. The changing table was in the handicapped stall and the previous occupant had decided against flushing the toilet. Why waste the energy, right? While I got ready, Ben wandered over to the toilet and before I could stop him, he threw Thomas in. I have no idea what would possess him to do that, but I grabbed Henry out of his other hand, before he fell victim to the same fate.

When we're at the playground with the trains I keep a close eye on them. Those suckers are expensive and we've already lost a couple. However, I could not bring myself to stick my hand into an un-flushed public toilet to rescue Thomas. Not happening.

On the bright side, Ben didn't even seem to care much that we left the train. We did have two other Thomases at home. It must've been fairly confusing for the next person in the bathroom, though.

At least he's self-aware

Yesterday morning Ben took a massive poop and it was super smelly. One of the worst in recent memory. So when I said, "Ok, let's go change your diaper," Ben replied, "Ben stinky!"

Parenting: Not for the Squeamish

Earlier this morning Ben told me he had to use the potty. I get excited when he actually tells me (yes, that's something that excites me these days *sigh*), so we rushed into the bathroom. We took off his pants and when I stripped his diaper off I noticed that there were some poop stains on it. I figured he'd just started pooping and maybe we could get some in the potty. Excitement #2 (ha, ha, #2)! However, then I noticed the fist-sized glob of poop that had fallen on the floor.

"Poop on the floor," Ben said, pointing helpfully.

Yes, yes there is.

Ewwwww! Ew! ew!

For parents, the first year of a baby's life is an exercise in not being grossed out by someone else's bodily functions. I've been peed on, pooped on and thrown up on so many times I don't think modern mathematics can determine the number. My gross out armor is pretty thick. But this morning something sliced through it like butter.

We have two cats and one of them is a big, fat tub of lard. She loooooves to eat, so every meal she wolfs down her food like she's been living on a desert island for two weeks with no food. This means that every few days she eats just a little too fast and then pukes it up again. The beauty of having two cats is that usually by the time I can check on the puke, it's been taken care of. I know that sounds disgusting - and it is -  but if you have two cats you probably know what I'm talking about.

Normally big, fat cat pukes in a place inaccessible to Ben. I'm sure you can see where this is going... I was doing dishes and Ben was being very quiet, which is never a good sign. So I walked toward the living room and there I saw him, kneeling over the cat puke and chewing. Words cannot adequately describe how disgusted I was. It makes me shudder to think about it. I promptly shoved some juice in his face to distract him while I cleaned up the remaining puke and then there was some very vigorous tooth brushing.

Oh god that was so gross. But it's going to be a wonderful story to torture him with for the rest of his life! Silver lining.

Yuuuuck

I'm not giving Ben Chex for a long, long time. He was eating one today and I think he swallowed it a little too whole. That caused him to semi-choke and then throw up. He was sitting on my lap at the time, so instinctively I put my hand out to catch it. I got most of it. It wasn't until I had changed his clothes, changed my pants and washed my hands that I realized how GROSS that was. The ways parenthood changes you.