You know, I’m so glad that I decided to potty train my daughter before she was three.
No. Really. I am.
Ah, Potty trainedness. It’s great, is it not? I mean, really. Having a little person who no longer needs to use diapers, but can march their little buttocks into the bathroom and go pee and poop all by themselves!?
Pure awesomeness, I tell ya.
Well, except for this ONE little thing. But really, other than this one little tiny thing that kind of ruins my mornings, it’s GREAT!
You see, my daughter has finally figured out how to use this whole “potty trained” thing to her advantage. Every single time that I lay her down for a nap or bedtime, she does this little thing where she shouts “I have to go pee so bad!” or “Oh noes! I have to poop!” at least 20 times.
And even though I know that she really doesn’t have to pee, I’m convinced that the one time I take a stand and say “NO! You are lying, there is no way that you have to pee because you just went two minutes ago!” will be the one time that she pees herself in her bed.
So, the girl has me “by the balls” and she knows it.
There’s also the whole “I can’t go out in public for more than a few minutes at a time without having to carry a little human being to the bathroom” But still, that minor inconvenience does not erase the greatness that is a Potty Trained Toddler.
Last week, I went to Bath and Body works to get a friend a birthday present. Five minutes into my shopping trip, Gabby was all “uh oh! Gabby has to go potty!” I ran to the cashier up front and asked her if there was a restroom my daughter could use.
“Sorry” she said all snottily “there’s merchandise back there and I’m FORBIDDEN from letting you go back there.”
“But please, she just learned how to go potty, she can’t hold it.”
“Sorry! But hey, Ross has a bathroom! I can hold your stuff for you though!”
“Don’t bother.” I snapped back as I threw my unpaid for merchandise on the counter.
Ross was right next door, but Ross bathrooms are DISGUSTING. Seriously, the last time I had used that restroom, there was shit smeared on the toilet and piss all over the ground. (I don’t need to tell you that I didn’t actually used the restroom do I?) So, I knew the nearest restroom was at Mervyns, and Mervyns was a few stores and an entire driveway away.
Look, I love you so much that I drew you a little diagram so that you could get a better picture.
Did I mention that it was pouring rain? Because it was pouring rain!
So, I had to run all the way across the parking lot to Mervyns with a two year old on my hip shouting things like “hold the pee pee inside for just a little longer! We’re almost there! Please! Don’t pee in your chonies! HOLD THE PEEEEEEEEEE PEEEEEEEE!”
We made it there just in time.
I was all out of breath, both of us were soaking wet from the rain. And I never did get my friend her present.
But! I had a child who peed on the potty! So Praise The Lord for THAT.
Now, I know that would have never happened if she were still wearing diapers and NOT potty trained, but hey! I don’t have to spend anymore money on diapers anymore! And that? Is great!
Is it not? IS IT NOT?
I do, however, have to spend money on Pull Ups. And not just any pull ups. Oh no. The Freaking Princess Pull Ups, which are actually more EXPENSIVE then the diapers because GOD FORBID I buy the generic brand ones with the bears on it.
(I didn’t even know that she knew that Princess Pull Ups existed, but obviously She Who Goes Pee Pee On The Potty pays attention to the commercials when she’s watching Dora and Blues Clues. And quite possibly also Little Einsteins, Barney, The Backyardigans, Doodlebops and Go Diego Go!)
But, other than all of that stuff that I mentioned above, and also the fact that I have to wake up 3 times a night to take her potty, having a potty trained child is really is the GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD![/sarcasm]
Category Archives: Parenthood
Warning: Parental Bragging (and also lots of talk of POOP) Ahead
One of the things that I was dreading about having to do toddlerhood for a third time was Potty Training.
I started trying to PT both of my boys at 2 1/2 years old and neither one of them actually was potty trained until a few weeks after their 3rd birthday.
They both fought it every step of the way. They especically fought “pooping” in the toilet. Every single time they’d have to take a dump, I’d find them hiding in the corner, grunting and red faced SWEARING that they weren’t pooping.
“ARE YOU POOPING?!”
“No *grunt* I’m *pfratta grunt* not. *grunt*”
I remember crying a lot, pulling my hair out a lot and falling on my knees asking God to send down his angels to carry my boys to the toilet when they needed to poop a lot.
I hated every single minute of potty training my boys. (Well, except the minutes where they would sit on the pot with a book and pretend to be pooping, because that was so precious.)
I have been putting off potty training G-Unit because I wasn’t sure that I was ready to go through the frustration and the changing of shit filled chonis.
Monday, I decided that I was ready to commit myself to potty training her and had stocked up on aspirin. (And wine. Lots of wine.) I also went to Target and bought her pretty little princess chonis and flushable wipes.
I was ready and I was hoping she was too.
I chickened out on Monday.
I chickened out on Tuesday.
But yesterday, I took the diaper off and put the chonis on.
I explained to her that from now on, when she needed to go pee or poop, she needed to go on the potty chair. (She had gone pee on the potty a few times before and had also pooped once. However, I would always put the diaper back on because of my “commitment issues.”)
She wore chonies all day yesterday, even when we went to basketball practice and she did not have a single accident. She would tell me everytime she needed to go and I would scoop her up and we’d run to the potty.
Each time she did it, I’d clap and cheer for her.
“I DID IT!” She’d squeel and then she’d flush the toilet and wash her hands.
Last night I started to worry because she had yet to Do The Doo. But at 7pm, she came running to me and declared “I need to poop!”
And poop she did.
Last night, she woke up twice to say she needed to go potty and when she woke up this morning, her diaper was completely dry. She’s been in chonis all day today and has yet to have an accident.
What the hell? This has gone entirely too smoothly. I’ve been waiting for her to pee or crap her pants, or beg for me to put a diaper back on her, but it’s not happening. She runs to the potty every time she has to go and doesn’t cry or whine about it. Infact, she claps and giggles and sometimes? She puts her head between her legs and says really precious things like “Come on, pachina, let the pee pee come out, ok?”
The real test will come on Saturday when we’re out at basketball games all day.
Could this really be true? Is it possibly my daughter is potty trained in two days? People have always told me that girls are easier to train than boys, but I never imagined it could be THIS easy.
I feel like I’ve won the lottery, man.
Pupp-ay!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Oh shit. You probably have a headache because of that nasty hangover . I’ll try to keep it down.
I? Do not have a hangover as this is the second, or quite possibly even the third, New Years Eve that we spent at home not drinking liquor and also falling asleep way before the clock struck midnight.
Because we are old and boring and no one wants to invite us to their New Years Eve parties anymore.
But we don’t care! We love having nothing to do on New Years Eve. Gives us a chance to fight about stupid things like plugged up toilets and fruit! And honestly? I love spending it here at home with the kids– knowing that everyone is safe, cozy and warm (even if they are unable to eat fruit and/or take a dump in the hall bathroom because SOMEONE REFUSES TO GET THE PLUNGER AND UNPLUG THE DAMN TOILET.)
The new year has brought us a new little someone to love.
That right there is the newest member of our family.
Lucky him, man. Lucky him.
His name is Bandit. Ethan named him that. When we asked him why he chose that name, he responded with the following answer.
“I named him Bandit because the minute I saw him, he stole my heart.”
Ah, The Cheese&trade, it runs in The Family.
It’s been incredibly fun to watch Ethan with his new lil’ friend. Or should I say “son”? Because Ethan calls himself “Bandit’s daddy.”
He even made up a cute little song about the two of them.
“I love you. You love me. We’re a happy Son and Daddy.”
(He kills me, people. KILLS.)
Thanks to Ma’People, I now have a buttload of new workout songs in my Generic mp3 player. The suggestions were so great, THANK YOU. I have to admit that I love the songs so much that my mouth freaking WATERS when I think about them.
I still have quite a few songs to add, but since you were kind enough to take the time to leave suggestions, I figured I would post the list of Totally Awesome Workout Songs that are now loaded and ready to be used.
Tomorrow. (No. Seriously. Tomorrow.)
Waiting. Worrying. Writing.
Last night we had to call 911 because my daughter could not stop coughing. She coughed to the point of throwing up and to the point of her lips turning blue.
While they were here, taking her vitals and doing what they needed to do, one of the fireman gave her an adorable little stuffed animal.
Her eyes immediately lit up and she said in her weak little voice “Thank you, fireman.”
She loves that dog and has clung to it all day long.
Tonight, she took another turn for the worse, burning a high fever and extremely lathargic. I’m usually the parent who freaks out and thinks the worse and I can always count on PigHunter to calm me down. Not tonight. Tonight, he’s the one that said “She’s bad, I’m taking her to urgent care. He just left a few minutes ago and I’m sitting here typing furiously, trying to calm myself down.
Perhaps it’s just the flu, or some virus that will pass quickly! But, it’s her history with RSV and lung problems that has me worried.
I’ve had less than 8 hours of sleep over the past 3 days, but I don’t mind because I signed up for this when I chose to bring these little human beings into this world.
I just want to know that my little girl is going to be ok, and I want her to get better already.
Ok, and maybe, just maybe, I’d like to get a little sleep, even if it is with a coughing little girl laying on my chest.
Update
They’re treating her for pneumonia, which is so funny (not) because the doctor who saw her this morning actually shrugged his shoulders (literally, shrugged them!) and said he had NO IDEA what was wrong with her, prescribed her some cough medicine and walked out of the room.
That’s what happens when you have an HMO and your doctor is “out for the day.”
OMG! DUCKS!
Inspired by my artistic rendition of a duck, I decided to take Gabby to the park to feed the ducks.
One thing you need to know is I am the type of person who afraid of breaking rules (because I do not want to rot in jail, nor do I want to burn in hell.) I tell you this because there are signs that kindly ask you NOT to feed the ducks, listing such reasons as “feeding the ducks will make them lazy!” After seeing that there were Do Not Feed The Ducks! signs, I became a little bit fearful of getting in trouble, so as we were walking to the pond I hid the baggie which contained 2 pieces of bread on the inside of my shirt. I’m not sure who exactly what or who I was afraid of– they do not have guards watching over the pond. But you just never know. It’s entirely possible that there there are people posing as “private citizens” moseying near the pond, waiting to catch the duck feeding rule breakers!
We arrived at the pond without having been caught with our bag o’bread, and I continued to pretend as if we were only there to observe the pretty ducks and not to feed them. I looked around to make sure there weren’t any men in city uniforms around before I carefully took the bag of bread out from underneath my shirt.
Once I had determined the coast was clear, I reached inside of my shirt, whipped out the bread and starting rolling them into little balls so that Gabby could throw them to the ducks.
She threw her first little bread ball and 2 of the ducks who were close by swam up to eat the bread. Gabby went crazy, she started jumping up and down and squealing. “Duckies eat bread, mama! Duckies eating!” I don’t feed the ducks often, so I forgot that when you feed them, they get all loud and start communicating with the other ducks. The two ducks closest to us were all “quack, quack! The Humans have brought bread, come and get it while it’s fresh!” Within a matter of seconds, two ducks turned into ten ducks. Then, ten ducks turned into what seemed like hundreds of ducks. They were all quacking in what I perceived to be a very aggressive manner.
I was trying to remain calm, because, seriously, they’re just ducks! However, I was a little terrified on the inside because I wasn’t supposed to be feeding them and there they were, making it TOTALLY OBVIOUS that we were feeding them. Someone really needs to talk to the ducks about that. If they would like The Humans to continue to feed them illegally, they really need to learn how to keep it on the down low.
Stupid ducks.
At one point, one of the ducks got tired of fighting for the bread and just jumped out of the water, unto the sidewalk and right up to me and Gabby. “WHOA, there, little buddy! Get back into the water please.” (I actually said that. Out loud. And I meant it.) I had never seen a duck do that before and it kinda freaked me out. Do the ducks not fear The Humans? Apparently, they do not. All of a sudden, one by one, the ducks started hoping out of the water and walking right up to me and Gabby. The scary thing was (haha, I said “scary” while speaking of “ducks”) that they were looking right at the bag in my hand as they were walking directly towards me. I swear I heard one of them say “You better have enough for all of us, bitch!”
I jumped up, grabbed my daughter and um, kind of started to run away, but in that way where one is trying to play it off as if they’re not terrified of getting killed by a gang of ducks. You know what I mean? I was trying to be all “Ok! We’re leaving because we are totally done feeding the ducks! No, seriously! We’re not afraid of the ducks at all! How lame would that be? HAHA!” Apparently, I am a bad at pretending not to be scared because two girls who were close by started laughing and one of them was all “Look! That girl is afraid of the ducks!”
There was nothing I could do at that point, except to turn around and admit my fear to the women who were so openly mocking me. “Did you see that? I got so scared, all of those ducks coming at me, I was afraid they were going to bite my daughter.”
(Think of The Children! THE CHILLLLDREEENNNN.)
I was pretty shook up as we walked away from the pond. I realize how stupid that must sound, since I am talking about DUCKS. Not alligators. Not Tigers. DUCKS!! But, I had no idea ducks were so aggressive and unafraid of humans. I so did not expect them to hop out of the water and get all up in my grill like that.
Effing ducks, man.
Love is…
Trying your hardest to draw “a duck” for your toddler who is begging you to “draw a duck like daddy, mama!” Even though you do not possess an artistic bone in your body and you know that you will be mocked by those you love when they see your drawing, because “hahaha, that looks nothing LIKE a duck, mom!”
I do believe this is what The People call “Venting.”
A friend called and asked if I could come over to help her with her computer.
“Yes!” I said “I’ll be there in 30 minutes.”
Obviously, I said that without taking into consideration that I have a daughter who can not stay in one place for more than 30 seconds at a time and who destroys anything she can get her hands on in those 30 seconds that she does stay in one place and OH MY GOD I WISH I COULD AFFORD TO PUT HER IN PRESCHOOL AND HOW MANY MORE YEARS UNTIL KINDERGARTEN?
In the 20 minutes since hanging up on the phone with my friend, my daughter has
-taken everything out of my jewelery box.
-taken the ONLY 4 maxipads that I have left apart and scattered througout the hall.
-opened my bank statement and littered the checks throughout the entire house.
-tried to shoved a cd into the cd player, scratching the cd to hell.
-climbed onto the kitchen table and turned on the ceiling fan, which THANK YOU CHILD, for it is hot, but OMG. YOU COULD HAVE DIED.
-PLUGGED IN MY CELL PHONE CHARGER. (Again, OMG! COULD HAVE DIED.)
-Pooped.
-dropped my MAC pressed powder and broke it.
I’m seriously praying to The Lord in the Heavens Above to give me the patience, love, understanding and wisdom THIS VERY MINUTE because I’m *THIS CLOSE* to losing my damn mind and um, my temper because OH MY GOD LITTLE CHILD OF MINE CAN I GET READY WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT YOU KILING YOURSELF OF BREAKING THINGS THAT COST A LOT OF MONEY TO REPLACE!?!111ALLCAPS!!!!
Tell me about it, girlfriend. Seriously. Tell me about it.
Love. (And also? The Return of The Cheese&trade)
I had accepted that I’d never be a mother to a daughter. I had two beautiful boys whom I cherised. I was content and happy with them in my life.
I had never imagined I’d find myself unexpectedly pregnant 7 years after what I had declared “The Last Baby I Will Ever Have.”
I certainly didn’t imagine that baby would be a girl.
And that she’d actually like me. Love me, even.
My daughter.
I never imagined that my boys–my sweet, kind, radiant little boys– would have a little sister.
A sister that they would look after, that they would take precious care of and whom they would love deeply.
I never imagined the day that my husband would one day hold in his arms a perfect little girl, with ivory skin and jet black hair while saying things like “How did we ever live without her?”
And that one day, I’d watch in amazement as she wrapped her tiny little hand around his finger.
Knowing the truth was that darling girl had the heart of the man whose hand she’s holding and the hearts of this entire family wrapped around her sweet little finger.
*This post brought to you by Love Thursday.
Because when one is “blessed” with The Gift of Awesome Dance Moves, it is one’s duty to pass that gift onto The Fruit of Her Womb
Giant Milky Boobs
Due to the “controversy” over the cover of Baby Talk magazine, I’ve been inspired to repost something that I wrote on August 27, 2004. Apparently, women (WOMEN!) are “shocked”, “embarrassed”, and “offended” over the image of a “GIANT BREAST” on the cover.
The quote I found most shocking came from the mother of a 4 month old.
“Gross, I am sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob.”
Gross? Really? A baby drinking from it’s mothers breast is GROSS?
Right, because the true purpose of The Boobs is for men to drool over and suck on during sex. So, a baby using the breast for that HORRIFYING ACT of drinking the milk that sustains their life is DISGUSTING AND HOW IN THE HELL COULD THEY PUT THAT FILTH ON THE COVER OF A MAGAZINE THAT MA’MAN MIGHT SEE?
I have no tolerance for women with this kind of attitude towards breastfeeding. I suppose I can deep within myself and try to understand people feeling uncomfortable with breastfeeding. But to use words like “gross” and “horrified” when speaking of breastfeeding is shocking to me, ESPECIALLY coming from a woman. The fact that there are people out there who can’t get past the sexualization of the breasts and view them purely as a sexual object is more “disgusting” to me than a picture of a baby sucking the milk from the GIANT BREAST of it’s mother.
Speaking of GIANT BREASTS. I now give you the archived breastfeeding post (WITH PICTURES! OF A GIANT BREAST!)
A few minutes after Gabriella was born, the nurse handed her to me. I kissed her and decided to try to feed her. I unbuttoned my hospital gown and brought her to my breast. She latched on immediately. I’ll never forget that moment. There in my arms was my daughter and she looked right at me while she began to eat for the first time in her life from my breast, the milk that would sustain her for the first few months of her life. I couldn’t believe how easily she took to the breast. Both of my boys had trouble in the beginning, learning how to latch on and it was very frustrating. But not with my daughter, she figured it out right away and feeding her has never been frustrating.
Infact, words can not describe what an amazing and fufilling experience it is everytime I sit down to nurse her.
I love how her beautiful little eyes will focus on me while she’s eating and drifting off to sleep. I love the sounds she makes, the coos, the grunts, the gulping, hell, I even love the way she farts while she’s sucking away. It’s the funniest thing in the world.
The love, the sense of importance, the bond I feel when I’m nursing my daughter is one of the most precious gifts in my life.
And let’s be honest here, the fact that I can get out of the shower, run out of the bathroom and start squirting Tony with MILK is pretty damn cool too.
