Brusha Brusha Bling-Bling

Last summer, we were away visiting family and I’d forgotten to pack my son’s toothbrush.

I remember standing at the local drug store, with about half an hour to spare by myself (this is how I spend my “me time”), and having a familiar dilemma in my head:

Ooh! A toothbrush that lights up!

Hmmm. Maybe I should pick a simple, less expensive one and teach him to embrace hygiene for hygiene’s sake...

But if I get the snazzy light-up one, I could let the toothbrush do the work for me. I deserve a break.

At some point that battery will run out. Then it’ll just be a regular toothbrush and I’ll have wasted the money.

But it’s only a couple of dollars more.

It’s the principle! If I get him the fancy toothbrush, he will always expect to have the product with the bells and whistles!

Wait. It lights up and blinks for five minutes, and shuts itself off? And so the child keeps brushing his teeth for five whole minutes? Ingenious!

I guess I could just get the plain toothbrush and set a timer.

But that wouldn’t be as fun. Screw it, we’re on vacation.

I caved. I got the light-up one. It is awesome. He uses it in the dark and even lets me brush his teeth, and the little lights help me see inside his mouth. And so far, the battery hasn’t run out.

I’m a sucker. But it’s in the name of clean teeth and gums!

Just think of all the money we’ll save on dental bills.

The Potty Training Couple

My husband and I were married exactly nine months and seventeen days before our first son was born. So, you know, we didn't exactly have years of freewheeling, couple-based fun before we jumped on the express train to kid-town.

Even though my time alone with my husband was brief, it was enough for me to recognize that there is a HUGE difference between the way that people without kids communicate versus the way that people with kids communicate.

It's especially noticeable when it comes time to potty train.

My husband is super hands-on when it comes to our kids. He's been on the front lines of the potty training battleground, which has been great, especially since our first two trainees were boys. This means there are whole realms of potty-related issues that I handle with the simple statement "Talk to your Dad about that, okay?"

I love being part of a two-person, well-oiled, potty training machine, but I have to admit that it has its downsides.  Dinner table conversations, which used to involve discussions of politics and news of the day, now revolve around potty use updates and debates on the M&M versus sticker chart techniques.

I used to ask my husband about his day and hear all about exciting updates in his field. Now when I ask him about his day it leads to a lengthy description of exactly how he is teaching our three-year-old to put on his own underwear.

And I'm just as guilty.

Before we had kids I would send my husband little texts throughout the day with messages like:

"Thinking of you!"

"Have I told you lately how great you are?"

"I'm making Osso Buco and molten chocolate cake for dinner! I know they're your fave!"

Now that we have a potty trainer at home my texts to my husband have taken on a whole different tenor:

"OMG look who went Number One in the potty!!!" [PICS ATTACHED]

"Ugh. These boys need to learn some aim - reserve some time this weekend." 

"911! Need more Pampers® Easy Ups!! DO NOT COME HOME EMPTY-HANDED!"

..and I can assure you that the day my husband saw me walking towards him down the aisle all those years ago in a white dress he had no idea how many lectures he was in for regarding proper wiping technique.

At some point recently it became clear that my husband and I needed to stop talking about the potty.

I mean I'm all for working as a team -- but all things need limits.

So if you've got a training helper consider yourself lucky, but do what we've done and set some limits. Have a brief time each day (preferably not at mealtime) where you update each other on the potty training success and failures of the day and then find something else to talk about.

I'm mean, like, ANYTHING ELSE.

You'll be happy you did.

Embracing the Quirks

Ever since we transitioned Molly to a toddler bed around 21 months she has developed an affinity for sleeping on the floor. Yes, she actively chooses to sleep on the floor (there must be a blanket and a pillow -- like a camp out) and insists on having a gate at the door. When she was a toddler I assumed this was a pretty normal thing and it would last a short period of time. But 1.5 years later we are still picking her up to put her in her twin bed almost every night.

In fact, her sleeping-on-the-floor requests are getting quite demanding lately:

"I need the pillow there Mommy" "NO the polka dot pillow!" "The other blanket. Fold it." "I need my toys." "Put the gate up." And then comes the inevitable "I need to potty!"

Even though she already went potty and I know she's probably just stalling, I can't deny her the potty. And so we sit and wait.... and wait. After I hear the smallest trickle of pee in the history of trickles she is ready for bed.

Back to the floor she goes, happy as a clam.

I don't want to force her to sleep in her bed if she doesn't want to. I know that she won't be sleeping on the floor when she's sixteen so why fight it now? Pick your battles moms! Maybe your kid insists on wearing the ugliest outfit you've ever seen. Let it be. Or maybe she has a weird chapstick obsession (who? my kid?). Cherish those funny quirks your little ones have because they won't last forever and one day you'll look back and have a nice chuckle at the memory of your little girl sleeping on the floor with 1500 stuffed animals surrounding her.

Not a Morning Person

I’ve never been what you would call a morning person.

Throughout my teenage years, in spite of my mother’s desperate attempts to convey the simple logic of sleeping during the hours when it was dark outside, I’d regularly stay up long past bedtime and then grumble mightily the next morning as my parents wearily tried to haul me out of bed in order to make the school bus.

My night owl ways followed me to college, where I had a bad habit of choosing courses based less on how closely they aligned with my major and more for their post-11am start times.

When I started working my housemates would constantly marvel at my unique ability to set an alarm for eight-fifteen each morning and still make it to my desk showered and dressed by 9am.

Over the years I’ve accumulated a cavalcade of novelty merchandise from friends and relations based on my storied dislike of all things “early”. I’ve got “I Don’t Do Mornings” Mugs, I’ve got a “I’d Like Mornings If They Started Later” t-shirt and I even own a pair of slippers that announces to the world “Don’t Even Look at Me Until I’ve Had My Coffee”.

When I got married and started thinking about having kids my greatest worry was how this long-standing aversion to all things “A.M” would fare against the realities of child rearing. The answer, now that I find myself a parent to three children five-and-under, has been a resounding—NOT THAT WELL.

People had assured me that having children would magically transform me into a morning person!! Those people were, what we call in the vernacular—LIARS.

Having kids has done NOTHING to make me a cheerful early riser. All having children has done is make me into a person who is out of bed at 6:30am each morning like it or not. Each day with the sunrise three small people leap upon my bed demanding food and reciting recent episodes of their favorite TV shows at top volume and, as a result, I find myself reluctantly peeling myself from the sheets in a fog in order to tend to their needs.

This week has been particularly challenging for my three-year-old who has just started potty training. He tends to do fine later in the day, but when it is time to get dressed each morning, he’s genuinely miserable.

He insists, loudly and tearfully as I lay out his clothes that he is NOT, in fact, a big boy. He begs for a diaper and I, determined not to lose ground in the potty training battle, demand that in response that he put on his underwear already and come to breakfast.

It’s been about as fun as it sounds.

This morning as we were launching into what has become our regular morning tussle on the subject, I finally took a step back. I put the underwear down, knelt beside my son and asked him,

“Honey, why is this so upsetting?”

He looked back at me, tears streaming down his face and answered,

“Mom, I’m just really worried that I’m going to get pee pee in my new Spiderman shoes.”

As soon as the phrase was out of his mouth a calm came over him. I told my kiddo that it was OK to feel worried. I told him that sometimes we all feel overwhelmed by things when we first get out of bed and I suggested a compromise.

I put him in some Pampers® Easy Ups and told him he could wear them as long as he needed to. This way, I explained, if he had an accident he didn’t need to worry about ruining his beloved footwear.

My son agreed enthusiastically. We spent the next few hours running our regular training routine. We visited the potty each time the alarm went off. When he tried I praised his efforts, when time he succeeded I rewarded him with a spankin’ new airplane sticker for his potty chart.

By 11am, when things had gone smoothly for several hours, my son let me know that he felt ready to try his big boy underwear for the rest of the day.

I’d learned an important lesson that just because my son wasn’t ready to use the potty at seven in the morning didn’t mean he wasn’t READY. He simply needed a little “safety zone” in Pampers® Easy Ups to fully wake up and regain enough confidence to transition into his underwear.

Because my kid, as it turns out, is just not a morning person.

And if anyone can identify with that – I can.

The Kindness of Strangers

We've added a new child to our family every 18-months for the past five years (for a total of three kids under six at present count) and it has made things a little...complicated.

I can't say I wasn't warned. My mother, who had closely spaced children herself, told me when I announced I was pregnant with Baby #3, "Yeah, once have that third one it occurs to you the first time you go to cross the street that you are just out of hands."

And she had a point. I cannot always manage to contain two highly-active boys and a 23-month-old girl whose legs move faster than her brain as I maneuver through my day. And so I often find myself relying on the kindness of strangers.

It's not uncommon to find me at the zoo calling out to fellow Moms,

"Will you grab that little blonde boy? He's making a break for it!"

People at the park lend a hand as they block my daughter from escaping the playground with cries of,

"Woah, slow down little one! Let's wait for Mommy!"

I can't count the number of times I've enlisted the help of a random 9-year-old at an indoor playground to "shimmy up there and see if you can track down my kid for me".

These people I do not know make it possible for me to survive outings with my kids, wait in post office lines, and even fly cross-country with my threesome. I hope that my interactions with so many people throughout the day is teaching my kids what it is like to function as part of a community, and I know that I'm grateful to everyone who has lent a hand, large or small.

So if you're struggling and overwhelmed -- whether with one kid or six -- don't be afraid to ask for a little help. In my experience most people are more than willing to lend a hand.

Two for Fun

I don’t like to waste anything -- money, food, the earth's resources, anything. I hate to waste!

But I’ve come to realize something.

Sometimes….

Sometimes you’re better off with two instead of one.

Take, for instance, my daughter’s baby doll strollers.

We have two by default -- we bought one and then received one as a gift.

I almost returned one. 

I’m so glad I didn’t.

Who would ever think you’d need two baby doll strollers?

Turns out, it’s very handy! Whenever she has a play date, or if my son decides he wants to take his pet dinosaur for a stroll at the same time as his sister, we’re in luck.

One stroller is a bit snazzier than the other. It’s got an extra pocket in the back, a foot rest for the doll feet (or dinosaur tail), cushioned handles. The other's just a plain ol' plastic stroller. Do the kids know the difference? Not really. At least not enough to care.

The best part is: No fighting!

Now, I will admit, buying two might be a bit conflict-avoidant. Sure. If we only had one baby doll stroller, we’d get to mediate the kids’ fights, have them taking turns, learn to share… That’s great fun.

Sometimes you just want them to play together without fighting!

I’ll concede, sharing is a very important skill. And there are PLENTY of opportunities to teach kids to share. But if you happen to see a “two-for-one” deal on train conductor hats, I say snap them up! Believe me, I’ve spent many five-minute increments with my timer in hand, giving my son and his buddies turns with our one. (Makes me bored and tired just thinking about it.)

Imagine if you and your spouse had only one pillow. Would you want to negotiate and take turns with it every single night?

No. You’d get another pillow so you’d each have one. Or two, or three (okay, I’m a bit wasteful when it comes to pillows…)

Toddler Justice

I have a five-year-old, a three-year-old and and twenty-one-month-old.

So the fighting in my house is pretty much non-stop.

My kids will roll about the floor in an epic battle over who will secure dominion over a train with one remaining wheel.

An action figure with a missing arm will suddenly come to represent the fulfillment of my son's every toy-based desire the moment his brother touches it.

Broken peach crayon says the baby? IT'S MINE! IT'S MINE! I HAD IT FIRST! ALLOW ME TO SHRIEK IN AN UNSPEAKABLY HIGH REGISTER IN ORDER TO CONVEY THE DEPTH OF MY CONVICTION ON THIS MATTER!

My oldest has a clear size advantage over his siblings, so my instinct has been to intervene in order to "make things fair" for the little ones.

"Hey!" I shout when I watch my oldest flat-out MUG his brother for a race car, "Give that back!"

Brother #1 then reluctantly hands his car back to Brother #2. Perhaps a coerced apology is issued. And peace is restored.

For approximately 4.8 seconds.

At which point Brother #2 puts the race car down. Then Brother #1 picks it up, which, of course reignites Brother #2's fervent passion for it. There are tears and cries of "I WAS PLAYING WITH THAT!!! GIVE IT BACK!!!!"

And I'm confused. Whose turn is it now? I mean, I'd established that Brother #2's original possession of the car made it "HIS TURN", but once he put it down I have to imagine that some sort of abandoned property statue would come into play? I try to sort it all out for myself but by this time both children are shrieking so loudly that I'm having trouble forming any cohesive thought.

Welcome to the murky world of TODDLER JUSTICE.

Another example:

I say Brother #1 gets a five-minute turn with the tablet and then it will be his sister's turn. Two minutes into his five-minute turn Brother #1 abandons the tablet and his little sister claims it.

So wait, do sister's five minutes start now?

Can Brother #2 claim priority until his five minutes have elapsed?

Does Brother #1 get an extra three minutes next time?

Or do we just abandon the the timing system entirely????

YEAH, I HAVE NO IDEA.

I've spent too much time lost in the morass of it all -- grabbing toys away from one child and attempting to redistribute them in a fair and equitable manner. The result, inevitably, is that everyone in the room (myself included) is tearfully feeling wronged.

So I've learned to err on the side of staying out of it. Sure, my older son's bigger, but the middle one is wily, and their sister is not afraid to utilize the "shriek of doom" in order to get her way. In general, I feel like it's a pretty fair fight.

Any form of violence, of course, is shut down immediately, but otherwise my advice on the subject is simple -- get out of the toddler justice business.

For good.

Bedtime: To Diaper or Not to Diaper

 

There are a lot of differing opinions about potty training during the day vs. potty training during the night. Some kids can make it all the way through the night without an accident and some can’t. For us it has been a mix and when asking for advice it has been like a waterfall of "do this, don’t do that, try this, you can’t potty train at night because it’s biological."

OMG. What do we do? Honestly, it is exhausting changing sheets in the middle of the night. Oftentimes I feel like I have a newborn again. Get up, change toddler, change sheets, go potty, go back to bed (maybe).

Pampers® Easy Ups literally have been a lifesaver. Some mornings she’s dry and others she’s not, but we are all sleeping! And as any parent knows, sleeping is pretty much the most important thing ever. More often than not she’s dry, but for those rare occasions it’s nice to know that she’s protected and happy!

The Potty Drop-Off

There comes a time in every potty-training-Mama's life when she has to make a tough decision.

IS MY OPPOSITE SEX CHILD READY TO USE A PUBLIC BATHROOM BY HIMSELF?

When my son was first out of diapers, I didn't give a lot of thought to bringing him into the woman's room. But then came the day when he peered under the stall next to him and announced in a loud voice, "Mommy! This lady sits down just like you!" Once I got over being the pariah of the Ladies Room, I started to think about when it might be time for him to start using the bathroom by himself.

As it turned out not long after, the decision was made for me.

We were at a movie theater. Before we left home I made my son use the bathroom. Still, the moment the previews started he announced with a sudden urgency that HE...HAD...TO GO!

I hustled him out towards the restrooms and headed for the Women's entrance only to find that it was being cleaned. I attempted to interview the attendant about how long it might be, but by this time my son was hopping back and forth from one foot to another and making small desperate noises that suggested that TIME WAS RUNNING OUT.

So, I bit the bullet and moved over to the Men's entrance. As we stood at the doorway I whispered a last-minute refresher course on all things bathroom related:

"Don't touch anything!"

"Wash your hands!"

"Don't come out of the stall without your pants on!"

I squeezed his little shoulders and pointed him towards the entrance. And then I waited. And waited. And waited. Visions of all manner of bathroom disasters danced through my head as I peeked around the corner for any sight of him. And then something amazing happened. He emerged in one piece! His pants were zipped, his hands looked washed and he gave me a firm verbal confirmation that flushing had occurred!

So while you may never feel "ready" to send your little one of to the public bathroom without you, know from this Mama that it is not that bad. Now at five, my kiddo regularly heads off to the restroom solo and I don't even worry anymore! [OK, I mean almost.]

Playus Interruptus

My four-year-old boy HATED going to the toilet.

I’ve heard that kids, especially boys, have potty-resistance for one main reason: They don’t want to stop playing with their toys to go to the bathroom.

That was SO true for my son. The more intensely he’d play, the more he was willing to hold in his pee or poop to the point of explosion.

It was really unsettling.

What was most unsettling for me was that it didn’t seem at all unsettling for him!

His dream would have been to attach a potty to himself at all times so he could run his train set or zoom his plastic airplanes all the live long day without interruption.

We used to let him bring toys into the bathroom and then, of course, one of the little pilot action figures fell into the toilet. (My husband fished him out with rubber gloves. I won’t live long enough to repay that one.) 

I tried giving my son books to look at on the john, but even Dr. Seuss couldn't measure up to his favorite race cars.

And then...we discovered the ONE THING that works.

TOY CATALOGUES!

My son could sit on the toilet and look at toy catalogues for hours! It’s gotten to the point where I have to give him five minute warnings to get OFF the toilet.

So maybe it's a little weird, but at least now he enjoys potty time.

He loves calling me in and saying, “mommy! I see a new item for my birthday wish list!” His birthday’s not for 10 months. I don’t feel the need to remind him of this. If it ain’t broke…

So for any parents dealing with potty-resistance, I suggest trying toy catalogues.

Unless, of course, your kids don’t like toys. In that case, I'm afraid you're out of luck.