Pottying by Numbers

Because we have one newly trained toddler, I'm now trying for two. My apologies to anyone eating breakfast or lunch or even thinking about eating while reading this blog. You have been warned. I will try to be delicate.

There are three problems with introducing a young toddler to the art of going the bathroom.

1) They will show no interest and you will be frustrated.
2) They will show excessive interest in the products and you will be appalled.
3) They will show no interest in going and tons of interest in the product and you will be both frustrated and appalled.

Guess which one I got.

We were giving showers and my new potty trainer had gone. While I was stripping her for the shower, her younger sister toddled in, delighted to see that a shower was pending. She began to strip of her own accord. Checking the water and preparing the first, I had not yet emptied the pot. Then from the corner of my eyes, I saw someone...painting...on my door.

"There is No Painting with Pee!" I managed to get out before grabbing the brush and tossing it in the trash. I decided not to answer "Why?" despite repeated requests.

The first daughter got in the shower. I took off the diaper of the second daughter and caught her in the act and decided to plop her on the potty. It would be a fake success, but visually undeniable. She didn't want to sit, she wanted to squat, but I wouldn't let her move. It took five minutes, by which time; the first daughter explained she wanted to see.

I toweled off the first, thinking she could reinforce the praise I heaped on the second. "She made a butterfly." my newly showered daughter said. "My poop is just rocks." There was a touch of envy. The creator was curious and considering what this strange thing might be. One could see the wheels turning...where's my paint brush...followed by a hint of trauma as I swooped in to throw out the proof before too much fascination was shown. It was then my second daughter got her shower.

Evidently, this whole experience was too much for her, as she finished her business in a diaper to avoid any further scrutiny of her bowel movements. I for one appreciated her discretion and have tabled further potty training sessions for the younger for the time being. But I do know one thing, her motivational prize...a pack of water colors and a pad of paper, but I'm going to eliminate the yellow and brown paints just to be safe.

Food Stalker

My daughter shall never starve even if lost in the woods if her innate hunter/gatherer/forager skills are any indication. This child finds hidden stashes of candy from Saint Valentine's Day and beyond and leaves no trace of the theft because she also consumes the wrappers.



By following her older siblings around, she can usually get the prime scraps from whatever they've decided to have for snack. Between her natural cupie doll looks and her fierce toddler will, "Can I have some, can I have some, can I have some, can I have some?" that enables her to repeat those same four words tirelessly for 20 minutes at a time if necessary; she gets extra slices of pizza from her older brothers, bags of chips from the team snack, bonus cookies at bake sales and a near unlimited supply of drinks. All of this was bad enough, but now she's become independent.



The food she acquires through persuasion is insufficient to meet her caloric needs. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack plus second breakfast which the next older brother views as a constitutional right rather than an eccentric dining convention of hobbits, are not enough. She can open the fridge. She can open the freezer, and using a chair, she can get to the higher shelves in the pantry. I’ve taken to putting “boring food” in front of the desired cereals, cookies, crackers and chips, but it gets hard sometimes to find things as a result. This past weekend, her father brought home a bag of apples and a box of clementines. I'm thinking, we're set for the week for fruit for the lunches. Yeah!



On Monday, she found the apples. I'm not sure what I was doing at the time. Maybe feeding/changing her brother, maybe making the bed or switching the laundry, but I came into the kitchen and noticed the apples were not in their basket. The basket was empty. I hunted. I called. The house was silent.



I began patrolling the rooms; first the upstairs, no one under the bed, no one in the closet having a picnic, no evidence hidden in a waste basket. On the main floor, my room was clean, the bathrooms, empty, the study and the dining room, vacant. Panic was seizing me. The apples had been gone at least ten minutes if not more. Downstairs I raced. The main room was a mess as usual but no kids. The kid's study was also quiet. The girl's room and bathroom needed sprucing but there was no trace of my three toddlers or the apples. Now where to look? I came back up puzzling and calling. Then I saw them.



On the screened in deck, they had 12 apples on their kid table, still unconsumed and three that were happily being crunched. The apples were in a line and the three of them were trying to put ten apples up on top. The fruit kept rolling but the oldest patiently kept trying to place one or two on top of his head and wondering why they wouldn't stay. The next oldest was holding the inspirational book open to the page and pointing.


I gathered up the fruit that was still unbruised, bagged it in a Ziplock and placed it in the back of the refrigerator on the top shelf. “There.” I thought to myself.


In the afternoon, the box of clementines went AWOL.

Tipping Point

One of my sons never makes his bed. My daughter who likes to make her bed, felt sorry for him and helped out. Then, my two other sons stopped making their beds and she took that on too.

Noticing the discrepancy of work, I called a Wolf council (we howl and then everyone comes a running to here whatever announcements might follow). Usually, allowance is involved.

Paying the chief bed maker for her work, there were protests and calls for fairness.


I agreed and told the non bed makers to pay up for her sevices or start making their own beds.

They each gave a quarter and agreed to make their beds from now on or be fined by me.

I wonder if I could get a job managing mortgages.