Remember that scene in Princess Bride in the Pit of Despair? The horror, the shrieking? It was like that. Feces and urine and water. All over the floor. A toilet roll was slowly absorbing the mess; a toilet bowl brush was laying on its side, defeated. Poop on the wall, the stool, the outside of the toilet. Noah has no pants and has taken off down the hallway in order to prove his absolute innocence - despite the copious amounts of fecal matter on his legs. No matter - run away, run away! She'll never guess it was you!
Talitha is standing sans pants in the mess - happily brushing her teeth with one of the big kid's brush. There is poop on her shirt. She is laughing. I put both toddlers in the bathtub (Noah is wrangled and most likely perplexed as to how I figured out the culprit - boy, that mom is good...) and have Kate wash them up while I start the cleaning process. One of the side effects of potty-training is that the stock of Bounty paper towels has gone up considerably. You're welcome, economy. But..not environment, I guess. It's a wash.
There I was, mopping up my dignity along with unspeakable things. I was really upset because it's right next to the toilet, c'mon now. So I was working up some pretty strong words, which in our family amounts to things like "Gosh darn it!" and "Why the heck did you do this?" I know - powerful.
I got it cleaned and vowed to write a really nice letter to whoever invented Lysol. Noah made it through his nap time in his underwear and then we headed off to the store. He dutifully told me he had to go to the bathroom so we hustled into the family bathroom. He does his thing and I wash his hands and then tell him not to touch anything because store bathrooms are yucky. I wash my hands and he strolls right over to the toilet and starts picking up the seat and touching the rim. I quickly yell "No!" and run to grab him to wash his hands again. He proceeds to throw a monster fit face down on the floor in the Walmart bathroom (If I remember correctly, one of Dante's circles of Hell takes place in a Walmart bathroom). He literally has to be carried out of the bathroom yelling and then strapped into a grocery cart (at this point we now have two carts, one for each toddler. We're like a parade but with no balloons or happiness).
Today it was a downpour all morning and our fantastic septic system stopped working around 2 pm (when I walked in on Tali and Noah in our bathroom, playing in the seat-high water in the toilet bowl). I was really hoping to get through the afternoon with nary a bowel movement. I'm looking in the fridge "Now let's see, what causes constipation?" I tried just having Noah pee into the yard along with Jack but it's like taking out a chihuahua - Ooh, this patch of grass looks nice - No, this one! - Oh look, a bird!
After 20 minutes of standing out in the rain with him, I stomped back inside and slapped a diaper on him.
I've probably just obliterated the training done this last week, holding a single gummy bear in my hand so that he'll pee in the toilet. These things tend to happen just as I'm feeling smug. By the third child I feel like I've got this - sleeping through the night, potty-training, eating vegetables. Just when I feel like I can sail through solely on my experience and, let's be honest, intellectual prowess, bam! You're elbow deep on the bathroom floor, mopping up a mixture of fecal matter and pee, wondering where it all went so terribly wrong. You think you're pretty awesome at this whole parenting thing and then a toddler comes along and suddenly you're Googling "How to get Vaseline out of a Shop Vac."
I was such a good parent before I had kids. The best. Now? I just don't know.
I got it cleaned and vowed to write a really nice letter to whoever invented Lysol. Noah made it through his nap time in his underwear and then we headed off to the store. He dutifully told me he had to go to the bathroom so we hustled into the family bathroom. He does his thing and I wash his hands and then tell him not to touch anything because store bathrooms are yucky. I wash my hands and he strolls right over to the toilet and starts picking up the seat and touching the rim. I quickly yell "No!" and run to grab him to wash his hands again. He proceeds to throw a monster fit face down on the floor in the Walmart bathroom (If I remember correctly, one of Dante's circles of Hell takes place in a Walmart bathroom). He literally has to be carried out of the bathroom yelling and then strapped into a grocery cart (at this point we now have two carts, one for each toddler. We're like a parade but with no balloons or happiness).
Today it was a downpour all morning and our fantastic septic system stopped working around 2 pm (when I walked in on Tali and Noah in our bathroom, playing in the seat-high water in the toilet bowl). I was really hoping to get through the afternoon with nary a bowel movement. I'm looking in the fridge "Now let's see, what causes constipation?" I tried just having Noah pee into the yard along with Jack but it's like taking out a chihuahua - Ooh, this patch of grass looks nice - No, this one! - Oh look, a bird!
After 20 minutes of standing out in the rain with him, I stomped back inside and slapped a diaper on him.
I've probably just obliterated the training done this last week, holding a single gummy bear in my hand so that he'll pee in the toilet. These things tend to happen just as I'm feeling smug. By the third child I feel like I've got this - sleeping through the night, potty-training, eating vegetables. Just when I feel like I can sail through solely on my experience and, let's be honest, intellectual prowess, bam! You're elbow deep on the bathroom floor, mopping up a mixture of fecal matter and pee, wondering where it all went so terribly wrong. You think you're pretty awesome at this whole parenting thing and then a toddler comes along and suddenly you're Googling "How to get Vaseline out of a Shop Vac."
I was such a good parent before I had kids. The best. Now? I just don't know.
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