Smiling Mom

I’m not sure if this inci­dent high­lights my not so highly per­fec­ted set of paren­ting skiz-zles, or my ina­bi­lity to keep friendships alive… but I know there is a les­son to be lear­ned here somewhere.…

The scene: Hubby pulls out our mons­ter CostCo sized bag of M&M’s, giving BC and eClaire their own bowl.  Which just about knoc­ked them over with delight!  (Ama­zing what a bit of sugar depri­va­tion will do to my kids!!) And here’s the kicker…he lea­ves the bag, open and on the coun­ter.

Um hello!!?  Doesn’t my dear hunk-a-burning-love know that I lack the abi­lity to resist my M&M’s???

As I pass by this quickly deplea­ting bag for the THIRD time I casually say, “Um, Babe, don’t you think it’s a bit foo­lish to leave the huge bag of M&M’s OPEN and on the coun­ter?  It’s prac­ti­cally screa­ming EAT ME!”

Which prompts my WTF moment.

My dear boy, BC, turns to his new hero, Daddy, and says, “You don’t have to lis­ten to her, Daddy.  Just bump her to voicemail.”

Um, hello?  I am stan­ding right here!

I often won­der if I’m alone, dif­fe­rent, suck in a sec­ret rea­lity TV show.  I mean, really, how many kids can be so inte­res­ted by their pri­vate areas to make up songs about them, regularly?!

My daugh­ter does.

In the car going over a bumpy road: My ba-gina is ti-i-i-i-ckling meee meee mee eeeee!

Sit­ting with a glass of water bet­ween her legs:  Ohh, ohh, ohh it is cold, cold, cold.  My ba-gin-a is cold, cold, cold.

And that’s only my daugh­ter.  Let’s not even talk about all the new things my son has lear­ned about himself.…

Son:  gig­gle gig­gle, look Mom, my wie­ner (new favo­rite word) is stic­king out of my undies!!  That’s funny!!

Yes, Son, that’s funny.

Not.

As I may have casually men­tio­ned yes­ter­day, my daugh­ter is out of dia­pers. Ohh hahaha whot wehew!

Excuse me while I regroup.

OK, I’m good.

So as I was saying. Dia­pers are soo yes­ter­day. Big girl pan­ties, are in the now.

eClaire began her potty trai­ning jour­ney just before the flu from hell hit our house and all but disa­bled her for nearly two weeks. During that time eClaire didn’t have energy to sit up, let alone try to potty on the toi­let. And let’s not talk about the effects that flu had on her bowels.… Yes. Let’s just say that we skip­ped pull ups all together and went straight back to diapers.

Square one, again.

Once she hea­led from the flu, we were ready to being our dia­per free jour­ney again. Key word in the last sen­tence, we. As in Hubs and me. We, as in NOT eClaire. She was at the point where she still cried every time she too­ted, (that’s lingo for gas in our house).

Now let’s just say that my dear daugh­ter has a remar­ka­ble stub­born streak. I have no idea where she gets it from. coughHUBBY­cough It couldn’t pos­sibly me! No!! I’m so willing to bend. cough­NOT­cough

Since we requi­red she wear undies during the day­time, she deci­ded to stop poo­ping. Like for four days. Oh my good­ness, you should have seen the size of her belly. And you can thank the Lord that you weren’t around to expe­rience her whiny, crying out­bursts during those days. She was un-com-fort-able! Oy, that belly!!

On a side note, it’s inc­re­di­ble how that child of mine can hold her pee ALL DAY LONG and only pee in her pullup during the night. INc­re­dI­BLE. But I digress…

So come nap time I inform ask eClaire that she would if she would be going go potty on the toi­let before we put her pull ups on.

And then the hys­te­ri­cal tan­trum began. Since I’m not one to back down from a tan­trum, I thought Game On what a lear­ning moment. Today I will BREAK HER eClaire will have the oppor­tu­nity to potty on the toi­let!! She will become Potty Trai­ned TODAY.

But…I got weak in the knees. I couldn’t do it. I nee­ded reinforcements.

Hubby came to the rescue.

He imple­men­ted Ope­ra­tion Potty Tan­trum.

Hubby went into the bath­room and sat on the floor rea­ding his maga­zine all the while totally igno­ring eClaire with the occa­sio­nal, “Sit down honey. You can get up once you’ve gone potty.”

A.N.G.R.Y SCREAM. MAD MAD TANTRUM A.N.G.R.Y SCREAM.

For like 15 minu­tes Hubby sat on that ground igno­ring her tan­trum, like the ama­zingly Super­nanny–trai­ned hus­band that he is, as I paced outside the door, pull up in hand and screa­ming “UNCLE!!”.

“It’s OK Honey. You can get up as soon as you pee.” (Remem­ber, she hasn’t poo­ped in FOUR DAYS)

“AHHHHHHHHHH WAAAA BLAAAA Grunt, Grunt, Grunt WAAAAA BLAAAA AHHHH”

“Daddy, I just poo­ped! WAAAAA!!”

“Great job honey, now go potty.” Hubby sat there for a few more moments until eClaire reluc­tantly went potty, got her off the toi­let and prai­sed the bajee­zus out of her. We all did the super happy (paten­ted) Smi­ling Family Potty Dance* and sent her off to nap.

And that, my friends, is how eClaire became potty trained.

From that moment on eClaire has hap­pily gone to the bath­room on her own accord.

I am diaper-free and filled with glee!

Ope­ra­tion Potty Tan­trum com­plete, thanks to Hubby

*No, there will not be a video clip included!

And.…now you don’t.

Um, ya. Did you notice that?? NO CHANGING PAD!!! And the DIAPER BAG is GONE!!!

Time’s a chan­ging in the Smi­ling hou­sehold folks. Times a changing!!