For the love of all that is Holey - DCUM December 7, 2007

To: dc-urban-moms-list@mailman.dcurbanmom.com
> Date: Friday, December 21, 2007, 7:41 AM



I am either going to shoot myself or starting drinking at breakfast! I know parents of twins
(and more) around the world have successfully potty-trained their kids without doing either, but I feel like I am going to lose what is left of my small mind.

John and David declared on Tuesday that there would be no more diapers. Fine. That was our plan for the holiday break, since we are masochistic freaks who like to do all the hard things over the holidays – think losing the pacifiers, dropping some nursings, etc.

My problem is, it’s not the potty training that is driving me over the edge, I can clean and sanitize and redress with the best of ‘em – it’s managing my hell boys…

I bought four different potties at various consignment sales, with the theory that we could start by having them scattered about the house like candy from a piñata. Naturally, they only like one of them, so they spent Tuesday pushing and shoving each other off the favored
throne, or simply dominating said throne (and thereby their sibling) by refusing to get off of
it…

Fine. So, I went out and got two matching potties Wednesday and that seems to have solved that problem. Each child, however, likes to have "company" while doing their deeds, which leaves the other child to either wreak havoc elsewhere in the house (think kitchen – think mess), run off with the toilet paper and unroll the whole thing to get to the tube within
(which then becomes "unusable" because his royal highness on the throne wishes to unravel his own paper), or to stand in the bathroom and antagonize the crap (so to speak) out of the one who is dutifully sitting.

Or, while one is dutifully sitting, one will go elsewhere in the house to have a sneaky pee or a sneaky poo, aka "accident." Or, wholly unrelated to one being on the potty – one will be doing the tantrum thing somewhere in the house and need immediate attention to prevent serious
self-inflicted bodily injury, and the other will arrive on the scene to investigate, while making "that face" and "that sound" that indicates that a poop is in progress.

When one is left to do his business solitaire, whilst I attend to some other emergent crisis, he manages to either screech until I return, or proceed in silence to find something in the bathroom that he has no business doing, like removing the lid from the back of the john, breaking into the "childproof" cabinet under the sink, or dispensing enough hand soap into the sink with water to make the bubbles overflow ala Great Falls with 6 tons of Dawn dumped in upstream.

And the friggin’ dog (an 85 pound Sheppard) keeps joining us in the bath room…and vomited all over the rug in the boys room – yes, the dry-clean only sheepskin rug which I promptly threw in the washer.

And the boys insist on being entirely naked while learning this new skill…

I am not an inattentive parent and I have a house the size of a cracker-jack box and I am running as fast as I can back and forth. I realized recently that my primary methods of "parenting" these first three years have been containment, elevation (of off-limit things) and deception (gee, I have no idea where your cow bells are, sorry). Sadly, those techniques seem inappropriate in this venue.

Please, someone, throw me a bone and tell me I’ll make it til Saturday when my husband is on-duty. Other than straight jackets – what else can I do that won’t win me a referral to CPS?

I have yelled more in the last three days than in the last three years combined and am concerned about by place on Santa’s list as we approach the big day.

Advice, commiseration, and a stiff drink are all welcome…not necessarily in that order, of course.