He's improving his aim

Potty training a boy is a completely foreign thing to me.  I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I don't pee standing up, but that's beside the point.  He's been in underwear for a little over a month now and it's gone much more successfully than it did last summer when we tried it.  I'm sure it helps that he's older and his buddies at school are also in the middle of potty training.

 

Little Man has gotten to where he doesn't want me anywhere near him when he's in the bathroom.  He yells at me to "get out" whenever I try to go in there with him, so I just stand by the door, usually, to make sure he's actually going.  The last time I did that, I heard him going, but it didn't sound like anything was hitting the water in the toilet.  Let's just say his aim was a little off.  Maybe we need to throw cheerios in the toilet again, for target practice.

 

I'm sure it's payback for me laughing at a friend of mine whose son was training last year.  He had a tendency to "mark his territory" whenever he was going to the bathroom - even at our house.  Needless to say, I keep the bathroom pretty clean out of necessity since Little Man is still working to improve his aim.  Which is ironic since I don't like to clean.

 

But just the other day, I didn't stay by the door.  He has closed it so he could have his privacy and I was sitting on the couch playing solitaire.  I heard the toilet flush, he stepped out, closed the door loudly behind him and pronounced to the world "I'm a BIG boy!"

 

I laughed.

 

So it goes, so it goes.  

 

To pee or not to pee...

Little Man walked awkwardly down the hall towards us , trying really hard to keep his legs from touching each other.

 

"Did you just have an accident?"

 

Sadly, "yeah."

 

Monkey turns to look at her brother, asks,

 

"Are your pants wet, Little Man?"

 

"yeah,"  the wet stain covers his pants like a pair of chaps.  He continues his bowlegged walk towards me.

 

Monkey turns back, carrying her book from the hall to the kitchen, raises her eyebrows and  quietly, with a bit of bored amazement and just a hint of inflection, says,

 

"wow." 

 

 

 

Conversations with a two year old

"I'm stinky"

 

"Do you have a stinky diaper?"

 

"No."

 

"Let's go change"

 

"K"

 

"Ewww, you're stinky!"

 

"I got BIG poop!"

 

"Yeah, you do"

 

Points to the dirty diaper  "Look, a mountain!"   

 

 

 

Yeah, this is my life.

 

Conversations with women when men aren't around

I was able to go out with some other mommy friends last night without children.  How stress-free that was!  It was a local restaurant that doesn't have a liquor license so we were able to brown-bag wine.  Much cheaper that way!  Anyway, there were 6 of us and 5 each brought a bottle.  Needless to say, we didn't get to finish all the wine - I think one or two bottles weren't even opened yet.  

Conversations between women/moms are quite interesting.  Topics included our children, our husbands and our families, potty training and all the bad words our children learn from us.  Summer camps, house shopping and I think all of us at one time or another have hit a stationary object.  Sneaking out as teenagers, college pranks, whether or not alcohol was allowed in State Parks.  We talked about lots of things, both funny and serious.  We talk and talk with lots of detail and information.  It's part of how we share our friendships.  And if our yard ever gets "forked" with plastic forks, I'll know who did it.

We also talked about how different men are with their friends than women.  Not in a bad way or anything, just different.  Guys can go for years without seeing or talking to a friend, and when they do catch up, it's not really a long, drawn-out conversation with lots of details.  Gals need to catch up and talk about every little thing.  Guys don't need to do this.  Example:  One friend's husband was asked to be the best man in one of his friend's wedding.  She didn't even know he had this particular friend - at least that he was close enough to be the best man!  Another friend mentioned that a baby was born and her husband didn't know the details.  Personal example:  we get an email - an EMAIL - from a long time friend of Trey's that he's going to be a daddy.  

When I got home and talked about this conversation to Trey, he said "oh yeah, Shane and Jules had their baby last week (names are changed to protect the innocent)."  As a note to all you men out there reading the blog (all two of you, I'm sure), please know that pregnancies, wedding and births are all very important information to your wives.  There are things to do, plans to be made, gifts/cards/dresses to purchase.  We need to know the weight, size and name of the baby.  How is the mom?  The dad?  How is the baby?  Are the siblings adjusting?  (if they're in town) Do they need anything?  Can we get a meal to them?  If there's a wedding in the future, we need to know when?  Where?  How formal is it?  Where is the bride registered?  What are the colors of her wedding?  Since you're the best man, aren't you supposed to plan the bachelor party?  When will that be?  Where are you going for it?  If you're going to have a baby, we need to know things like due date, how is the mom-to-be doing?  How is the pregnancy going?  (thankfully, our friend understood that I needed details and supplied them, in an email, of course :) ).

Yes, women really do need to know all these things.  I know (because Trey told me) that when Shane and Jules had their baby that the baby is fine and he told them congratulations.  That's it????  

poop and pools

What is it about poop in pools and children?  I'm not talking about tossing a Babe Ruth in the pool to watch everyone scatter.  That's for older kids to do.  I'm talking about little ones in diapers (or not in diapers) who can't  take the time to get out of the pool and go do their business.

But what if they're potty trained?  Maybe it makes a difference, but I just don't know.  Apparently, our son likes to poop under water.  I'm sure this will make potty training difficult in his case, unless I actually let him sit IN the toilet instead of ON the toilet.  Hmmmm.... food for thought....

I should have been clued in last summer when at Mawmaw and Pawpaw's house, the kids were playing in a kiddie pool and on a slip-and-slide.  Being the ever-prepared parent that I am, it never occurred to me to pack swim clothes to go to visit for the weekend.  They don't have a pool, or a neighborhood pool, nor are they at the beach, so why would  they need swimwear?  I forgot that they do have running water and a yard - and that's all children need for playing in the summer.  So when Little Man's regular diaper practically soaked up the little plastic pool, we decided to take it off.   Then he proceeded to poop in said pool (after we added more water, of course).  

Isn't that such a cute picture?  He's gonna hate me on prom night and at rehearsal dinner, but I digress....  Had he been our first child, intense cleaning and scrubbing with all kinds of child-safe cleaners (like that Arm n' Hammer magic sponge!) would ensue and the back yard and kiddie pool would have been quarantined for a week.  However, being much more laid back with the second child, we just hosed him off, dumped out and flipped over the pool and sent everyone to the slip-n-slide.

I thought that was it.  I thought wrong.

This summer, every time - and I do mean EVERY time - we have gone to the pool, and once out on the lake with a friend - There has been poop involved and it's usually Little Man (thankfully, the boat incident was his buddy WB, I was beginning to think it was just my kid).  And I don't mean that nice solid poop that's easily cleaned up.  I mean that not-so-solid, running down the leg, takes an entire box of wipes to even start, kind of poop.  And since we're at a pool, with other people using the pool, we must be considerate and break out the child-safe cleaners.  A hose simply won't do.

The first incident this summer happened at a neighborhood pool with friends who supplied me with many wipes.  At least there was a changing table, but I made Little Man stand on it while I attempted to clean him up.   Truly it was disgusting.  For those of you who aren't parents yet, just wait.  You'd be surprised at what you'll do for your children.  After I wiped him down, I stood him in the tiniest sink known to man to try and wash him.  Unlike the YMCA pool where something similar happened last summer (again!  poop in pools - I'm sensing a pattern here), this pool didn't have a locker room where I could hold him under a shower.  Just a tiny bathroom, without ventilation, and a tiny sink mounted to the wall, without a counter.

He did the same thing at the same pool the second time we went.  This time, I was a little more prepared - I brought wipes with me.  Thankfully, it wasn't quite as messy.

He did the same thing yesterday at a different pool (beautiful pool, by the way, I want this one in my back yard).  Only here's the thing.  I caught him making that "stance" so I knew he had to go.  Since we're working on potty training, I thought this was a perfect chance to get him to poop in the toilet.  So we go to the bathroom.   I explain (to a two year-old) that we can't poop in the pool.  I'm sure he understood.  We go and he sits on the toilet and he does nothing.  What is it about pooping in the toilet that freaks kids out?  I'm sure there are people who can't go a day without pooping and it feels great when they do (did I really just type that?).  I explain again that he needs to poop in the toilet, not the pool.  I think he understood.  He said he was done, so I put his only swim diaper back on (usually I bring two because of our history of soiling at least one at the pool) and we head back to swim.

He didn't understand.  

A few minutes later, as he walks by, I smell it.  Off we go, back to the bathroom, this time for cleaning.  There's no changing table, so I do all the clean-up I can with him standing on the floor.  Didn't have wipes (you'd think I'd learn) so I used what I could find.  He wasn't happy that I told him no more swimming because he pooped in the pool (and because I didn't have another swim diaper) so we put a regular diaper on and headed out.  He looked great walking around in a diaper and his sandals.  What a look for my little man.  

I don't think we'll be invited to any more pools this summer, without at least asking if he's had his poop for the day.  We should stick to back yards where I can just hose him off and be done with it....