Getting Past Poop and Pee

Not to gross you out, but sometimes, I wonder if my day involves anything besides those two items.  Okay, I know it does, but when you are potty-training, it seems that your day just revolves around such subjects.  This morning, I was awakened to the not-delightful news that the carpet had been peed on again.  Another son had an accident that involved the other item getting on his rug and books — wherever he sat or anything he touched.  So, one boy was dumped in the tub.  I scrubbed and scrubbed.  Another boy was given cleaners for the carpet and rags and told to clean.  Tonight, he sleeps in the tub.  We are really trying to stop this peeing all over the place.  If you have been following my past blogs, you’ll see that we are doing everything we know to teach him that he must obey.  Some kids are unbelievable though when it comes to resisting instruction.

In spite of my not-so-happy morning, I am enjoying the sounds of my kids singing songs about Jesus as they happily play.

Time for me to get the van loaded and head out to shop for my sister-in-law’s wedding.  I discovered that my son needs all new dress shoes again.  He is 5 1/2 and wears size 1 1/2!   He really is growing up!

Depends

This evening, my husband was talking with Son-L about going on the potty.  Son-L indicated that he didn’t want to go on the potty.  My husband said the following in response: “I can see it now.  We’ll be advertising: ‘Wanted!  Wife for man who comes with life-time supply of Depends.  The offer depends on how good you think it is.”

Help!

I went upstairs to get the boys up from naps and smelled an odor that alerted me to a problem.  I discovered both boys had pooped — one in the little potty in the room and one in his nap-time diaper.  Both had attempted to wipe themselves by finding where I keep the extra rolls of toilet paper in the laundry room (off their room).  I found them standing on top the wash machine with a pile of dirty toilet paper scattered all over the floor and wash machine.  There was poop on their wall, floor, wash machine, and all over themselves.  One little boy had also peed on the carpet — don’t ask me why.

Ever since, we took the boys shopping for a toy to celebrate the fact they were potty-trained, they started having accidents again.  I am thinking we shouldn’t have given them toys.  We waited to reward them until we saw they had gone for weeks without any accidents.  Now, we are back to daily accidents.  Potty training is so incredibly frustrating and discouraging!

For the Record…

I wanted to share a the huge victory that our boys are finally potty-trained, other than still wetting sometimes during naps and bedtime.  Yeah!

Unglorious Moments

As every mother has experienced at one time or another, motherhood has its “unglorious moments.”  There are those times that we do hardly anything besides dealing with the rudimentary basics of the digestive system.  Input and then clean up the output!  Some days, the output seems to be predominant over the input.  When I have encountered another example of my sons’ persistency in reverting to their old method of disposing of said output, I find that motherhood is indeed not to be pursued for it glorious moments.  In practicality, motherhood consists more in dealing with the unglorious moments.  I believe that the “unglorious moments” can then become “glorious” when we have learned to view them as such.  For glory can only be experienced when our emotions are willing to acknowledge it.

That is why we see great artists who often choose something worn as their subjects rather than something we might consider beautiful.  There is beauty to be seen within the wrinkles, rust, weathered, and chipped of life!  For in these imperfections, we see the stories of lives and as a result experience profound emotion by which we would otherwise be incapable.

So when I experience a morning like yesterday — when my son chooses to use the carpet rather than the potty — I can remember that I have the honor of being a mother.  I am responsible for shaping the life of a person and through him — many more!

Potty training Duo, Pre-school, & Pristine…

Son-W1 and Son-D are both being potty trained now.  We have had successful events for both boys, which is exciting.  I am looking forward to hopefully soon having just one boy in diapers during the day, instead of two in diapers and one in Pull-ups.  On the potty training, note I had an adventure today with the boys.  I stepped out on the porch briefly to stay good bye to our babysitter today while the boys were sitting on the potty.  I came back inside to quickly check on the boys and found them emptying my lotion into the toilet, splashing water from the toilet all over the floor; and Son-D scrubbing his head with the toilet brush, water from the toilet, and my lotion.  Ugh!!!

Son-W1’s first 1 1/2 hours of pre-school went well today.  He enjoyed the other kids and behaved very well.  I enjoyed meeting the other moms and kids.  I think Son-W1 is going to really enjoy pre-school.  He seemed to have fun his first day.  Yeah!

I feel very content now that I finally have a cleaner and more organized house.  I can’t clean often because I am too busy with the boys, and there is rarely a “safe” time to do it.  Yesterday, I resorted to not a great solution but the only one that would work without having someone else around to help.  I used movies.  I save them for events like this…  I don’t like to have to use movies so I rarely clean.  I clean bathrooms and vacuum downstairs during nap times.  Cleaning places like the upstairs, organizing filing cabinets, and bedrooms, etc… though doesn’t get done often.  Anyway, I put a movie on and locked the boys in the family room in their high chairs with some toys and cleaned the upstairs.  During their nap time, I cleaned the downstairs, bathrooms, filled out some more paperwork for Son-W1’s school, and swept my porch and spider webs off around the house.  After I put the boys to bed, I sorted and filed and reorganized our bills and business paperwork.  It felt so good to finally get to this stuff.  I even reorganized my husband’s CD’s and our games yesterday!  What a great feeling!  Our house isn’t exactly “pristine,” but in my mind it is just as good to me.

Potty Training Praises!

Yesterday was a day of victory in potty training.  Son-W1 was able to stay dry a lot in between potty trips.  He didn’t resist me in having him sit on the potty, and on his own he told me that he had to go potty.  He then sat down and did a #2.  He asked, “Mommy, are you really proud of me?”  I told him, “YES!!!”  He got a lollipop over that one.

Potty Training Perils

Potty training!!!  Ugh!  We started potty training our one son a year ago.  We still are potty training.  We took a break and started back up this summer.  Our son has the capabilities but not the willingness or desire to go potty.  He would much rather go in his Pull-ups, underwear, or diapers.  We keep trying to tell him that it is part of life and growing up.  He will have to learn to go potty and on his own.  Any suggestions?