The 10 Reasons I am OVER Diapers January 26, 2010

For those of you who have been sympathetic to my potty-training plight will be thrilled to know that child number one is now officially OUT OF DIAPERS! Yes, it is true, in the sixth year of his life, our oldest son has kicked the Pull-ups habit and is now sleeping diaper free (and pee-pee free) through the night! We are so proud and happy for him! Now if we could just get the little guy to poop in the potty instead of the floor or his pants, we will be rockin’ a “diaper-free” household.

In light of the new chapter in our potty-training story, I began to look back nostalgically on diapers and what they have meant to my family and me over the past six years. I have had a love/hate relationship with these white, mysteriously successful “wetness absorbing” necessities of motherhood. Here are just 10 of the reasons I am sooo OVER diapers and ready for them to be a thing of my permanent past.

1. Price – They are so darn expensive. Even the “cheap” brands that sag after just one small excretion are outrageously expensive.
2. Lack of fashion-ability – When you are lugging around a couple of extra diapers and wipes everywhere you go, you are greatly limited in your options of dainty little fashion-forward handbags.
3. Constant feeling of guilt – This may seem a little out there, but I try to be environmentally conscious and there is absolutely nothing environmentally friendly about diapers. Their mystery material takes like 30 billion years to break down, and well, needless to say, diapers aren’t something you can just throw in a bin for recycling. I have seriously considered the “cloth” diaper option, but I am still haunted by the smell of my own nursery when I was a baby and cloth diapers were the only option. Gag.
4. Unreliability – You buy diapers to prevent nature from running down your child’s legs; however, I have been let down time and time again by my kids’ diapers, usually in public places. They have one function and one function only and when they fail in that function, you feel a little cheated. Most moms know about this unlucky phenomenon and never travel anywhere without an extra change of clothes tucked somewhere in the bottom of their bag – which in turn reinforces point # 2 in lack of cute purse options.
5. Those stupid “characters” printed on diapers – Can’t they just all look the same? Plain white diapers are fine. Why do we have to force fashion choices on our children at such a young age? For the longest time I was forced to purchase the more expensive brand because they were emblazoned with Buzz Lightyear across the front of the diaper and his buddy Woody across the butt. After a few packs of those, I finally had to explain to my son that mommy and daddy could no longer afford to have him pooping on Woody anymore. He cried. Damn, you Pampers.
6. Lack of ability to hold up in the washing machine – Have you ever accidentally washed one of those things? Oh gosh! That is a gross mess I wouldn’t wish on anyone. They completely disintegrate into this gel-y, flaky, mushy mess that is close to impossible to clean off the clothes and out of the washing machine.
7. Hides total cuteness – I hope this doesn’t sound a little weird, but I don’t think there is much out there that is cuter than a teeny-tiny baby booty! It’s almost a sin to put such a big, bulky thing on such a cute little butt! On days we were just hanging out at the house, I would put my guys in their little teeny-tiny size 2T underwear, partly to get them used to wearing big boy pants, but also because they looked so darn cute in them.
8. Lack of existence of the one-diaper-does all – Wouldn’t it be nice to just have one “do it all” diaper? If you scan the diaper aisles these days you will notice there is a diaper for everything, but not one diaper that does everything. You have to have a diaper for newborns, a diaper for crawlers, a special diaper for swimming, there are nighttime diapers, and diapers made especially for potty-training, even diapers made for boys and some for girls. I am waiting for them to come out with “seasonal” diapers – “lightweight but absorbent for summer BMs and down-filled diapers for those winter-time accidents.”
9. Aroma – No matter how absorbent or pleasantly scented a diaper is, you cannot mask the smell of its contents. My house hasn’t smelled the same since my first-born came home from the hospital. I don’t know if it’s just me or if my house really does always smell like poop. Even after tightly wrapping the soiled diaper in a grocery bag and tossing it in the outside trash, the smell of poop and baby-powder just hang like a cloud in our house.
10. Unspoken stigma – As many of you know, I have not had major success in the potty-training department and I’ve noticed that sometimes just seeing a diaper will spur some people into a sympathetic pep-talk about their road to diaper-freedom. Now, most moms probably don’t “mean” to be degrading, but when they go on and on about how their 10-month old has been out of diapers and peeing and pooping in the potty, you can’t help but kinda feel like you have done something wrong since your six-year old still wears Pull-ups to bed (not anymore!) or your three year old actually takes his underwear off and puts on a Pull-up when he has to poop. Let’s just not talk about it.

To Poop, or not to Poop December 1, 2009

Its been a few months since I’ve updated this blog, and to be honest, there is no real changes. Isn’t that terrible!?!? How can this be? The last post I wrote was in February and now, here it is almost December and both of my boys are still not exactly sure what the toilet was made for. Now, we have made some real progress with the little guy – he is now in big boy underpants! There is nothing cuter than a little, tiny 3-year-old bootie in tighty whiteys! Gosh, I could pinch him all day. Sorry, I digress. The good news is that for months now, he has been going pee-pee in the potty 100% of the time. He even wakes up in the middle of the night to get out of bed to pee-pee in the potty. Wish I could say that he has really made strides in the pooping in the potty department, but that just is not the case.

I have heard the “reasoning” from some parenting publications, etc. that say some kids have trouble pooping in the potty because they don’t like to see “their poop” going down the drain. That they feel like its something being taken away from them or whatever. I have to say that Griffin will adamantly refuse to poop in the potty. He will have nothing at all to do with pooping in the potty. No matter how much I bride or threaten him, its just not happening. I always thought this “losing your poopy to the toilet monster” theory a little crazy, but could it be true? Griffin says he just doesn’t like pooping in the potty, yet he will pee-pee in the potty all day. Could it be that he has developed such a love and closeness to his poop that he doesn’t want to just see if flushed away? Could it be that the longer he can live with it, drooping in this underpants, or wadded up in his pull-up, the better he feels about letting it go? Who knows, but at this point I am willing to contemplate any possibility, no matter how obscene it sounds.

So, I am still cleaning out underwear, for both kids now, and I don’t see any end. I even had to go up to Jake’s kindergarten not too long ago to bring him an extra pair of underwear, because he had a little “accident.” When I got the call from his school, I was right in the middle of grocery shopping and you know what I did – finished shopping. “He can wait a few more minutes,” I thought to myself. He knows how to poop in the potty, if he chooses not to, I choose not to leave the grocery store right now. Now, in his defense, most of the “accidents” he has now are just the little skid marks he gets when he waits until the absolute last minute to head to the bathroom. That is still a little annoying, though.

I guess I should try to think of the positive – at least my kids don’t put their hands in their pants and rub it all over the walls. That’s a good thing, right? I guess its back to the drawing board to figure out what it is going to take to make Griffin realize that the toilet monster is not going to gobble up his poop. That actually, the toilet is like a virtual poop fairy and just floats the poopie to a beautiful and wonderous place called poopieland and its all going to be o.k.

Potty JOY! December 1, 2009

Oh Joyful day! I’ve never before considered pooping in a little “toy” potty as being miraculous, but after a few nights ago, it has now made it to the top of my “miracles” list! Yes, it is true Griffin pooped in his little toy potty! It was the craziest thing ever. After a full day of failed attempts of using the potty, suddenly, Griffin tells me he needs to poop. OK, I thought, thats real cute, Griffin. Not only did he tell me, he came into the bathroom and sat down on his little potty. All he did was poot, which was no big surprise, so I gave him a little smile and a pat on his cute little butt and he ran back into his room. A couple of seconds later, he came running back into the bathroom, once again telling me he needed to poop. Wow, I thought, you really are trying. Not only did he sit on the potty, and do a little pushing, but something actually came out! I absolutely lost all control! I could not believe he actually did it! We were so proud of him and yelled and screamed for about an hour. He must have thought in his little toddler mind that he just did something “really cool!” We let him dig out a treat from the treat box and gave him a piece of candy and let him stick a sticker on his “potty chart.” It was a glorious night! Well, it has been three days since that wonderous event and I am sorry to report, that it has not happened again. He is refusing to use the potty at all and doesn’t even want to put on a pull up anymore. Ahh, regression…..

Return to the Potty December 1, 2009

Sometimes, in the mornings when we don’t have anything going on, I refrain from putting a diaper on Griffin and encourage him to run to his potty when the urge hits him, or when the “urge” takes him and physically places him on his potty chair. Well, we were doing good. He was EXCITED! He was strutting his stuff around like he was king of the house. He went into the bathroom on several occasions and sat down on his potty and pushed and pushed to no avail, but by golly, he was trying! I knew this was going to be the day, the BREAKTHROUGH. The night before, daddy rushed him over to the potty when he had to go and a couple of drops actually came out, so I just assumed today he would be like a lion who has tasted blood and was out for the kill! Well, not so much…..

Every time I uttered the phrase, “Griffy, need to go to the potty?” he played along being the cutie patootie he is. But not two minutes after he “tried” on the potty with me, he successfully pee-peed on the floor. I mean, it was like magic. I guess me setting him on the potty was the warm up. So, I had happily cleaned up a couple of floor pee-pees by the time it was 10:30 AM, still sure that we were on the way to something big! Well, we were, just not in the potty.

“Mommy, I poo-poo on the floor” came a sweet little voice from the playroom. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME!” came a not-so-sweet voice from the kitchen. Sure enough, I go into the playroom, and there, where Griffin had been crouched over the floor playing with cars, was a formidable pile of brown goo. Lucky we have hardwood floors, is all I gotta say. Following “the cleaning of the poo” I went upstairs and grabbed a diaper. No progress on Day 2.

So, Day 3 started off just dandy. We woke up to rain and a snow day! That’s right, no school on account it MIGHT snow, or there MIGHT be some ice somewhere in the county. Thankfully, the night before, I went out and bought two packages of Pull-Ups, one for Jake and one for Griffin. Maybe big boy Pull-ups will work for Griffin, I thought. We didn’t have much time at home, because we made plans with Aunt Carly once we realized there was no school.

I was right! He LOVED the Pull-ups and was soooo proud of them! He told anyone within earshot what he had on under his pants. So, we frequently went into the bathrooms and pulled down those Pull-ups and…..NOTHING. But two minutes later, his Pull-ups were mysteriously full. Yes, he peed in the Pull-ups and he pooped in the Pull-ups. Day 3 – No progress, but still loves to wear the Pull-ups!

Day 4 started off as usual. This time we actually DID have snow! Oh JOY! A quarter of an inch of pure white FUN (for about 30 minutes!). The Pull-ups came on, then the snow suit and we headed outside for a romp in our winter wonderland.

Now, Day 4 was interesting….nothing new to report on the Griffin front – still loves the Pull-ups, still sitting on the potty, still nothing going in the potty. The gumption is still there though! No, the interesting aspect of this day was Jake.

What a surprise when from the top of the stairs, I hear, “Mommy, I think I have poopie in my pants.” Now this was too much for ol’ mommy dearest to handle. After I took a swig of bourbon, I went upstairs and FREAKED out! Not really, but I did give him a bit of a chewing out and grounded him from Edward the train and computer time.

After some careful speculation and more bourbon, I came to the deduction that Jake is doing this for a reason. He is regressing, in my un-professional opinion, because little brother sure is getting a lot of attention from his whole going to the potty thing. Jake has been kinda doing “baby” things again like talking and crying like Griffin and doing some serious whining.

After discussing this with my hubby, I had another talk with Jake about how, as the big brother, he needs to show Griffin how to pee and poop in the potty not in your pants. “Griffin learns by watching you” I reminded him. He was eager to be the big helper and suggested it was time to make Griffin his own “potty chart.” So together we created a lovely chart filled with all of Griffin’s favorite things and nice, neat spaces to mark when he pees and poops in the potty. Jake even explained the “potty chart” to Griffin last night and we are going to actually tape it to the wall tomorrow. Hopefully this will encourage Griffin to get more stickers by using the potty and will encourage Jake to be the teacher to help Griffin gain those stickers. Keep your fingers crossed!!! I cant take anymore poo-poo cleaning!!!!

Potty Talk December 1, 2009

I have begun undertaking the arduous task of attempting to toilet train my youngest son, Griffin who is a little more than two years old. Now, the reason for my less-than-excited attitude about this wondrous time in a toddler’s life is that my previous experience was less than stellar. My oldest son, Jake is 5 years old, and although he is sharp as a tack, he has the attention span of a flea and the patience of a man in a clothing store. Although we are pretty much completely potty-trained, I am sorry to say, we are not 100% there yet. Jake still has accidents, mainly at nighttime, but every now and again, he just gets too busy to stop and poopie in the potty. FRUSTRATING!!!!! So, it has really taken about three years to potty train my first son. And yes, I know there are some of you who have potty trained their children in like two days or whatever, and to that, I say “SHUT UP!”

OK, moving on now…Its probably no surprise that I have questioned time and time my methods and my ability as a parent, but I have tirelessly and faithfully followed tips from the magazines and websites and of course, I have received much appreciated suggestions from my friends and others with children. The problem is….those methods didn’t seem to work for me. All kids are different and some kids are just drawn to the potty and others aren’t. My children fall in the latter category.

I guess that Jake was probably pretty average at learning to pee-pee in the potty. It does seem like we had more accidents longer than most of my friend’s kids, but I still felt like we had topped Mt. Everest! I just wanted to stop there. THAT was hard enough, I thought, now we gotta get him pooping in the potty too??!! Little did I know the long days of cleaning underwear, making charts, and searching for “treat box” treats this undertaking would curse me with.

Now back to the present. So, I now have a 5-year-old who still has accidents in his pants because he is just “too busy,” or he “doesn’t like to use the potty at school” and a 2 1/2-year-old that is just beginning this painful process (painful for me, that is.). And through this blog, you will be lucky enough to ride the thrill-a-minute roller coaster ride of poops and pees with me. Our mission: Training the little one to get used to peeing in something besides his room and helping the older guy realize there is no monster in the potty at school and getting up at night to pee so we no longer have to use a pull-up! The light at the end of the tunnel is non-existent from where I stand now, but I hope to see a little glimmer of hope over the course of the next few months….