Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Why Do We Keep The M&Ms Next To The Liquor?


It's a good thing diapers are expensive, or I just might decide it's not worth potty training at all. The potty training chronicles are still to come, but I'm too worn out tonight to give you the full run down.

The boys are all still enthusiastic. But somewhere around the 462nd time I put a small boy on the potty today I realized we keep our M&Ms (the reward for using the potty) WAAAY to close to the hard liquor. I may deserve a medal for not having a shot today.

After many, many, many, many attempts, we had one success. But overall, they are doing well. We've been at this for five days and everyone has gone in the potty or partially in the potty at least once. And my bathroom floor is exceptionally clean right now.

Today was a big day because no one peed on the floor, which seems to be the exception rather than the rule around here lately. On the plus side, my boys have all decided they love to wash their hands. Which is good, because they put their hands in the potty today more times than I can count. Yuck.

Yesterday did not go quite as well. I had a moment of poor judgment brought on by exhaustion just before bedtime. I made two critical errors back-to-back. First, I took a boy off the potty after no result and put him in the playroom with no diaper on because the other two were screaming for a turn on the potty. Then I put both boys who had been waiting on the potty at the same time. One on the big potty and one on the little potty.

I tried two at the same time before and one mom just doesn't have enough hands for that. The first time I tried it Alex put half a roll of toilet paper in the toilet before I could stop him. While I dealt with that, Sam got off the potty and peed all over the floor, then played in it.

But I digress. The point is that I know better than to put two on the potty at the same time.

About two minutes into entertaining the two on the potty to keep them still long enough for something to happen, I heard a shout from the playroom: "MOM! Piggies! Poopy! Piggies! Poopy!

I leapt up and ran around the corner to find one of my boys stomping his foot in the poop on the floor. Ugh!

I grabbed him and wiped the worst of it from between his toes while yelling at the other two boys to stay on the potty. Then I threw the poopy one in the crib in the playroom and ran back to the bathroom. Fortunately, no one had wandered off or peed everywhere. But Alex had his hand in the potty and Sam was "drinking" from the little potty seat, which fortunately had nothing in it.

I still had a poopy boy to deal with, so I grabbed the other two and took them to their beds. I diapered them quickly (See, I learned something!) and went back to diaper and clean up the culprit. I had no clean place to put him, so he went into his crib as well. I spent 10 minutes cleaning the carpet, the crib and the changing table while the boys laughed and partied in the nursery.

Not our best potty training moment, to be sure. I hope it turns out to be the worst. I don't want to think about how much worse it could get than that.

I'm finding that potty training more than one at a time can be something of a logistics problem, like so many other things in the life of a parent of multiples. Hopefully I've gotten most of the rookie mistakes out of my system now!

Just keep repeating with me: Diapers are expensive. Diapers are expensive. Diapers are expensive.

And carpet can be replaced.
© Trippin' Mama 2010

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

And M&M's and hard liquor are like salt and pepper...they go together

Jen said...

I tried once to train my 3 and it failed. Now the thought of potty training again send me to the fetal position. I may not eve do it.

Aunt Mary said...

Remember boys LOVE to pee outside so cover the sandbox, warn the neighbors and have fun. I think it helps them learn they are in control of those "things" (at least for now) =0)

Emily & Ed Tice said...

Who said you had to train 3 at once? If they like "follow the leader" start with one of the boys that has had the "best success" so far and let the others watch. Still work on them together but not at the same time...Although my sitter swears by letting boys run around no pants outside for a week...girls do the same but get to wear sun dresses w/o underwear...

Christy AKA Trippin' Mama said...

Mary, peeing outside is definitely in our future. This weekend we'll be running around with no bottoms on!

Emily, I don't have to train all three at once, but they see each other getting to go sit on the potty and they actually cry (and even scream!) for their turn! When they are all enthusiastic and want to try, it's hard to say someone can't have a turn for a couple weeks.

And they are all good about sitting there for a while, too, so I can't rule anyone out on the basis that they want a turn but won't sit long enough for something to happen.

So for now, it's all for one and one for all!

I've been learning along with the boys, it seems, so things will get easier once I figure out what works best for us. And the only way to figure that out is a little trial and error.

Christy

Suzy said...

Thanks for reminding me about this post ... now my week of potty-training the girls doesn't seem so hellish, LOL! One down, three to go.