Anyway. Enjoy.
I used to love the idea of having three kids so close together. You know, because I would get the hard stuff done all at once. Like getting through the diapering stage and potty training. I got pregnant for the second time nine months after my first was born. Just as I wanted – have them 18 months apart. But nature intervened and I miscarried that pregnancy as well as two others. So my first two kids are just over two years apart. And then because nature thinks it is wicked funny, my third daughter (surprise!), was born 13 months later. But I knew how much I rocked as a mom for brilliantly having all of my kids in a cluster like that. There was no way you could convince me otherwise.
AND THEN ONE DAY
There is a tremendous cacophony coming from the bathroom. It sounds like the toilet is getting beat up by the trainer potty while an enraged toddler growls with her teeth clamped tight. I should check it out. But I’m not going to. Because my 27-month-old has been potty training herself since she was 18 months. And why the hell would I interfere when she does a better job of it than I do?
The screaming is getting louder as a bare butt cheek whizzes by me on the couch. She’s intently pushing a chair across the kitchen now, repeatedly hollering and pointing at a toy up on the counter. Finally! She has her gadget. Sometimes you just need a toy to settle in and go, I guess. An inexplicable naked jog around the room and she dashes back to the bathroom. And then. A sound I have been waiting months for. You see, her potty sings a little ditty when it gets wet. And while she has mastered the art of stripping down, wiping and washing her hands, she has yet to actually GO potty. I can barely hear the music over all of her high-pitched, baby-voiced exclamations.
She did it. She finally did it. And thank God. Because let’s be honest, it wasn’t like I had much to offer in this department.
THEN THE NEXT DAY
It’s not even lunch yet and I am seriously regretting this slip in parental judgment. Allowing a child such independence? Insanity. I didn’t know a kid could get anymore naked. Or that doody could have such range. Does anyone have tips on how to unpotty train?
AND NOW
She loves to tell me she has to go poop. Don’t clap yet. She does this while whipping off her crap-filled Pull-Up and hucking it across the room. And then she runs to squat on the potty, further spreading the doo-doo love. So much for our recent success. I thought we were done with this shit. Literally.
You would think I had learned a thing or two with my first born. Nope. The other day my oldest scooted off the toilet leaving a poo smear. And I swear turds have legs because it looked like it danced around the lid, ran down the side of the toilet, then around the base of the sink and high-fived the rim for good measure. Her new favorite is leaning way back on the potty with legs in the air and yelling at me to come see her pee “really HIGH!”
You guys, it is so bad that sometimes I just want to sit in the corner of the room, giant yellow gloves on, rocking and hugging my bottle of bleach wipes.
So today when I see my 15-month-old was tugging on her pants and sitting on the trainer toilet, I’m like Hell. Freaking. No. Your cheeky little bum is going to be swaddled in diapers until you are 10. I will happily clean poop off of your school-aged butt between classes if it means not having to wipe any more urine and fecal matter from walls and floors now.
I take that back about having kids so close together. I prefer the plan that requires waiting 100 years between children.
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