Potty Training Red: Part Three

Preschool starts next month and Red HAS to be potty trained in order to attend. I have limited fluids, threatened, bribed, screamed, cried a lot…anything and everything I could think of and Red is still not potty trained. “How can you still be writing about potty training Red?” you ask. Ummm…’cause it’s Red. The kid is stubborn as an ox, sharp as a tack, AND he is funny. No one likes a funny kid. (Or a funny parent, for that matter, but we are talking MY problems here. You kids are welcome to start your own blog, just as soon as you figure out the code for the internet.)

Here is an illustrative example for you. When we were trying to teach Red his colors, he always got them wrong. I started to worry that he was color blind or a little dim. I consulted with my friend Google and learned that if Red had some sort of color blindness, there should be a pattern to Red’s incorrect answers. I began to pay careful attention whenever Red identified colors. He was not mixing up red and green. There was no pattern, other than he utterly and spectacularly got the color wrong. Always. I got suspicious.  I asked him about it and he just smiled at me. From then on he correctly identified colors 100% of the time.

Ha-ha! Funny joke. Get your mom to think you don’t know your colors. Good one, Red. I swear, if the peeing his pants doesn’t get him thrown out of preschool, his sense of humor will.

“No, really! He knows his colors. He just thinks it is funny to pretend that he doesn’t.”

“Sure ma’am, I understand. These nice men are just going to help you into this white coat with the funny arms. We wouldn’t want you to catch a chill on the way to the booby hatch.”

When  I reached the end of my rope with this potty training business, it was not even 10am and I already had a load full of pee-soaked clothing marinating in the washing machine. I was tired, I was hormonal, and I was in no mood for Red’s shenanigans.

“Red, you have to—Red! Listen to me! You have—LOOK AT ME! You have to tell me when you have to pee. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good. Now when you have to pee, what are you going to do?”

“Pee in my pants.”

“Red! That is not what mommy said. Mommy said that you need to tell me when you have to pee, so that we can go on the potty. Now, what did I say?”

“What did you say?”

“Listen to me. If you keep peeing in your pants, I am not going to give you anything to drink and you are going to be very thirsty and get dehydrated. You don’t want to dehydrate, do you? No, you don’t, so you are going to tell Mommy when you have to pee. Okay? I want YOU to tell me what I said, so that I know that you know what I am telling you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Tell me what I said. Go ahead. Tell me.”

“What did you say?”

“Red, I swear to God, if you do not repeat back to me what I just said to you, you are going in time out!”

“I’m sorry, Mommy.”

“Repeat back what I just told you.”

“What did you say?”

“THAT. IS. IT. You are going into time out. NOW!” 

He sat in time out for three minutes while I prepared my “Mother of the Year” application. When he was done serving his time, I got down on his level and looked him in the eye. “Red, you are in time out for not listening to Mommy. Tell me that you are sorry and give me a hug.”

“Sorry, Mommy,” Red said as he wrapped his skinny little arms around my neck.

“I love you, baby. Mommy just really needs you to stop peeing in your pants,” I replied as I scooped him up in my arms. “Ugh. Are you wet? DID YOU PEE YOUR PANTS WHILE YOU WERE IN TIME OUT?!”

“Sorry, Mommy.”

“Did you seriously just pee your pants while sitting on the time out stool with the decorative holes punched into it? The stool that you dragged directly above the air conditioning vent? Seriously?!”

“Sorry, Mommy.”

 I let out a scream of frustration as I made my way to the cleaning supplies. As I was walking across the kitchen floor, I slipped and fell.

“What is…?” <sniff, sniff> “Is this urine? Did you pee over here too?!!!”

“Sorry, Mommy,” Red replied.

Then I noticed another smell. “Red, so help me god, if you crapped in your pants—“

Eldest said, “That was me. I farted.”

“Goodness, child, what did you eat?”

“I don’t know, Mommy, but I don’t feel good,” Eldest told me. And he was walking funny. “I think I pooped my pants.” Oh, Eldest, must you overachieve at everything, even passing wind?

Now, reread that last section, starting with “Then I noticed another smell,” and continuing through, “I think I pooped my pants.” Okay, now do that again three more times. You are now caught up. After the fifth overzealous fart, I slapped a pull-up on his butt too.

“Mommy,” Eldest whined. “It’s <tug> not very <tug, tug> comfortable.”

“Too bad! I only have pull-ups in Red’s size. If you would fart on the toilet like I told you to….”

When Husband arrived home, I waded through screaming, crinkly-pants-clad little children and handed him Baby Girl.

 “Congratulations,” I said. “You are officially the only member of this family without something absorbent in their pants.”

“When did the dog start wearing pants?” he asked. Ha-ha. Good one, husband. Apparently, Red gets his sense of humor from his dad.

You Think I'm Nuts, Wait Until I Become My Mother

The Third Option family recently returned from a beach vacation. It was the five of us, my parents, and my aunt and uncle. What could go wrong when two parents drive 10 hours, through the night, with three kids under four years old in order to spend a week at the ocean? Plenty. What actually went wrong? Nothing. You read that correctly. I couldn't believe it either. Each one of my children was an absolute angel. My parents, on the other hand, were begging for the time-out stool.

Check-in at our rental house was at 4pm on Sunday. We wanted to do as much of the drive as possible while the children were sleeping. Unfortunately, if we left our house at 8pm, the absolute latest we could arrive would be at 8am. And that would happen only if we stopped 12 times and sat in traffic for 3 hours. Basically, we were going to get in at the crack of dawn and have no where to go. I explained this dilemma to my mom and she said, "We are staying about an hour away from the beach house on Saturday night. Why don't you meet us there? You and the Husband can get a few hours of sleep while Pop Pop and I entertain the kids."

"You will have another hour of driving to do on Sunday?"

"Yes, we always do that."

"But aren't you leaving on Friday?"

"Yes, we always do that."

"It takes you guys THREE DAYS to drive 10 hours?"

She rolled her eyes. "Your father..."

We arrived at their hotel at 5am. We had been driving since 7pm the day before and were loopy-tired. Somehow, we managed to get all of our, surprisingly chipper, children out of the car and to the hotel entrance. We steped up to the automatic doors. Nothing happened. Ever the compulsive reader, I heard Eldest say, "For your protection, these doors are locked from 10pm..." Crap. Husband and I looked at each other helplessly. A solution was way beyond our mental capacity at that moment. Then, I noticed movement inside. Oh thank god! My mom was waiting for us, watching the lobby doors from the balcony. I waved to indicate that she should come down. She merrily waved back. "Helloooooo!" Double crap. How does one mime opening an automatic door? I pointed to the door. "The. Door. Is. Locked." "What?" she yells back. The boys pounded on the doors. "Let us in!" Oh, I should have thought of that.

After a nap for the Husband and I, and some swimming for the kids, we decide to get some lunch before we finished up the drive. My dad suggested Ruby Tuesday. "We went there last night. It is just across the street." We agreed to take our separate cars and meet at the restaurant. It took us 10 minutes of arranging, rearranging, locating sippy cups, and yelling empty threats, but we finally got all the kids loaded up. The Husband exited the hotel parking lot, located the Ruby Tuesday across the street, and pulled in. But where were my parents? They shoud have arrived long before we did.

"Where are Gummy and Pop Pop?" Eldest asked. "They're gone!" moaned Red. Baby Girl, always calm in a crisis, continued to nap. I pulled out my cell phone and called my wayward parents.

"Where ARE you?" I ask.

"We are just pulling in. We got lost," my mom answers.

"Lost? You ate at Ruby Tuesday last night. And you can see it from the hotel."

I could hear my dad in the background say, "I forgot what road we drove in on," as if that explained everything.

"But you can SEE it from the hotel," I repeated.

"We went to all the other corners, but this one," my mom said.

"BUT YOU CAN SEE IT FROM THE HOTEL!"

"Your father..."

Not even 24 hours later, I was sitting at the dinning table in the beach house, enjoy the view, and trying to reach my critical caffeine level...

Pop Pop: Remember that bird statue we were looking at yesterday? It's gone.

Gummy: They took it down?!

Pop Pop: It must have been a real bird.

Gummy: What?! No. I can't believe someone came and took it down. Weird. I'm gonna put the baby down for a nap. You want her on her back or her stomach?

Me: Back.

My mom walked out of the room and my Aunt De walked in.

De: I found this calender online with lots of great stuff to do with the kids, but I can't find it again.

Pop Pop: I'll look for it.

De: I read something about a storytime under a tree...

My mom walks back into the room and says, "Oops, I forgot. She's on her stomach. Oh well, she can roll over."

Me: But you just...never mind.

De: I was just saying that I want to find that calendar...

Gummy: It's in the fridge.

De: What?!

Gummy: I put lettuce in it.

De: What?!

Me: Mom, she said "calendar."

Gummy: Oh. I don't know where that is.

Pop Pop: Well, look at that.

De: Did you find the calendar?

Pop Pop: Huh? No. I found fruit trees.

Gummy: Your father...

Then something terrible happened. First, I had a discussion with my mom about whether or not I had showered that day. With the overnight driving and whatnot, I wasn't sure when the shower-for-the-day cutoff should be. The fact that I was able to keep up a coversation about this for 10 minutes should have been my first clue. But when my mom suggested that I shower twice to be sure and I THOUGHT THAT MADE SENSE, I had a terrible realization. Oh my god, I am becoming my mother. ***shudder***

Now please excuse me, I have to go practice blaming everying on my father.

I Think Husband and I Are Too Lazy To Fight

Me: Are we in a fight?

Husband: It feels like it, doesn’t it?

M: Yeah. Are you mad at me?

H: No. Are you mad at me?

M: No.

H: Weird.

M: I know, right?

About 10 minutes later…

M: I think I said one thing and you got all pissy at me.

H : The fire truck thing?

M: The thing where I asked if you had seen the fire truck and you said “no” because you were standing on it?

H: I couldn’t see it.

M: Because you were standing on it.

H: I just think you could have pointed that out in a nicer way.

M: You want me to use a nicer tone of voice when I tell you that you are an idiot?

H: Yes.

M: Okay. Next time I call you an idiot, I will use my most pleasant tone of voice.

H: That’s all I am asking.

M: But you aren’t mad?

H: No way, that was a total bonehead move.

M: I wonder why it feels like we are mad at each other.

H: I thought things got weird when I disagreed with you about the proper use of “put it away” in beach volleyball.

M: I just think the connotation is that the winning of the point was completely due to the scorer.

H: But she won the point. She “put it away!” Kapow!

M: If she spiked the ball into the sand and no one touched it, then I agree. However, if the other chick has a spaz attack and flings the ball away, I don’t think the scorer “put it away.”

H: Because you are an expert at beach volleyball.

M: I HAVE been watching it for the last three days.

H: Good point.

M: Thank you.

H: But you aren’t mad at me?

M: Nope.

H: Is it ice cream time?

M: Hells yeah.