Smiling Mom

Often while I’m at work I get photo upda­tes of the kids day, thanks to Hubby’s favo­rite toy.

Today was no excep­tion.  BC has been fee­ling pretty sick this week.  We’ve spent every day, since Mon­day, near a toi­let.  Hubby said that BC had the flu.  I didn’t believe him.  Aside from the inces­sant runs, BC see­med fine.

Until today.

First I got this photo sent to me just before 8:00 A.M.  BC slee­ping any­time besi­des after 7:30 P.M. is abso­lu­tely unheard of.  This was not a good sign.

Then I got a text.

eClaire has the runs.  BC does too.

Crap.

eClaire clearly caught what BC has.

Then I got this photo.

It was deci­ded that the kids would have a “Movie in Paja­mas Day”.

Unfor­tu­na­tely that pic­ture was shortly follo­wed by the follo­wing text.

BC threw up all over the bed and him­self.  Now he’s thro­wing up in the toi­let.  AND eClaire is on the other toi­let with the runs.

Need­less to say, it was a rough day here.  None of us really smi­led much today. BC’s never expe­rien­ced thro­wing up before.  It frea­ked him the eff out.  Seriously.  I gua­ran­tee he will remem­ber today for the rest of his life.

Hubby was an angel.  There was mini­mal com­plai­ning, loads and loads of laundry, two baths each, and a clean house by the time I got home.

Angel.  He ear­ned a place in bed with me tonight!  Hehe    Thank good­ness it’s a king sized bed though… neither one of us wants to risk breathing on the other for fear of pas­sing the plague!

Cros­sing my fin­gers for two healthier kids by mor­ning… hoping, but not expecting.

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!!