Adventures in Potty Training

The subtitle to this could easily be "A Surefire Way to Make Mama Crabby and Want a Glass of Wine (which we happen to be out of)."


I try to be very careful about comparing life with twins to life with a singleton, mostly because I have no clue what life with one child is like. In fact, this is only the second time that I (publicly will comment on the difficulty of having twins in comparison to having one. But as you read, somehow I doubt any parent of singleton children (even those parents with "almost twins") are going to argue with me on this one.


Potty training twin is horrible. It slowly sucks every ounce of patience and life out of a person. I think this last week has shortened my life by at least a month or two.


We’ve been thinking about potty training for a while, and I finally decided that the boys were ready, and so was I. I was ready for messes. I was ready for laundry. I was ready for endless "potty talk" (thank you Elmo Goes Potty for teaching my boys the word "dookie"). I was even ready for giving up nearly all of my self-respect by making up silly little cheers for each bathroom success.


However, I was not ready for losing all control of my house. The chaos is wearing me down.


Here's how our day used to go, in relation to bodily functions:

George has a dirty diaper. I'm drinking my coffee. George waits a little bit, then, when I'm ready, I change the diaper. Two hours later, Patrick needs a diaper change. Again, I change him, but not until I’m ready to. We leave for Target. Two more dirty diapers that can wait until we get home. Another change before bed and that's that.

Here's what life looks like now:


George says, "Mommy! I have to pee-pee." I put down my coffee so quickly that some sloshes over the top of the cup. Mental note: clean that up later. I open the gate on the living room and let him go to the potty, because of course, both boys refuse to use the froggy potty we have available in the living room. George runs to the bathroom, strips naked, and climbs up onto the potty, where he quickly does his business. Then he has to use two squares of toilet paper (after I tell him to use one), puts them into the toilet without actually using them, flushes, and puts his face nearly into the bowl while yelling "bye-bye pee-pee and wipe." Then, he washes his hands, getting water everywhere, and I re-dress him. Meanwhile, Patrick is running all over the house because I didn’t close the gate behind us.


An hour later, both boys have to go potty. Patrick gets there first, strips naked, and sits on the potty (while reading a book) for about ten minutes. Meanwhile George, who again is naked, stands waiting for his turn. Patrick eventually goes, but George barely sits on the seat before he is going. Flush, say bye-bye, wash hands, dress both boys, and try to explain why we don't need to brush our teeth just because we see the toothpaste by the sink. Both boys take a quick run through the house, knock a few things over, and we head back to the living room.


Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.


I decide that we need to get out of the house. We get in the car and just start to drive when Patrick says he has to go potty. We find a public restroom to use where I won't feel too guilty for not buying anything. He sits for about five minutes. Nothing comes out. I re-dress him and help naked George go. Two seconds of tinkle. I re-dress him. Everyone washes their hands, while I continuously say, “don’t touch anything. Stop, no, no, seriously, don’t touch anything.” We get back to the car, buckle up, and re-start on our way. Patrick says he has to go potty. I then realize that what I thought was "go potty" is actually "go party." The boy wants to go to a party. We stopped for nothing. I weep internally about the headache I just caused myself.



A sweet lady at church said to me, "Oh, in twelve years, you'll miss not having to remind them that they have to go potty." Somehow I really doubt that.

Marshmallow Grabber

I am a marshmallow grabber. Some of you are probably wondering, “What on earth is a marshmallow grabber?” Without going into too much detail, in 1972 there was a psychologist at Stanford University who did a study on delayed gratification.  He took kids into a room and gave them a marshmallow. He told them that they could either eat it, or wait. If they waited, they’d be given a second marshmallow and they could eat both of them. If they were a “marshmallow grabber” (m.g.) they’d only have the one. (Check out this video of a more recent marshmallow experiment: http://youtu.be/6EjJsPylEOY)

I’m an m.g.  I would totally end up eating that first marshmallow if it took too long to bring my second one.  Because of that, pregnancy was a nightmare. I had to wait 9 whole months to see if we were having boys or girls (can you tell that my husband is a marshmallow waiter—he was the one behind the whole “let’s wait to find out the gender” thing). Being pregnant with twins, I fully expected them to be at least a little early. Finally, at 38 weeks my doctor had to induce. Apparently the twins are marshmallow waiters too.

Recently, my m.g.-ness has been acting up again. As a freelance writer, waiting is the name of the game. For those of you who aren’t familiar with freelancing, here’s the process (or least the process I’ve experienced):

You spend hours (days) working on a piece. You send it off to an editor. Then, you wait. And wait. And wait. Most places say they’ll get back to you in 8-12 weeks. That’s 2-3 months. And that’s if they get back to you on time. So, the 8-12 weeks go by and you still wait. Then, when you finally do hear back, it may or may not be good news.

Can you see how a lack of self-control is a bad thing when it comes to freelancing? I find myself wishing that I’d just get bad news instead of waiting for the potentially good news.  I supposed that’s not totally true, because if I knew that in thirteen weeks I was going to find out I was being published, I’d probably be willing to wait. But not knowing, having no closure on all the things I’ve sent out…it’s darn near maddening.

So here I sit, at the computer, trying not to check my email for the thirtieth time today, waiting. And praying. I’m praying that I’ll get better at being a marshmallow waiter and that I’ll stop going crazy over things I just can’t control.