Back on the chair

The twins are back on the chair--the potty chair that is. I tried and failed this job before. The twins defeated me. They fought me, and I backed off, thinking to myself that they just weren't ready. My confidence was low. But no more, oh no! It is definately time to revisit the chair. Why this sudden interest in re-introducing the chair, you might ask? Simple. The Fellers went overboard with the poop games yesterday so much so that the Mommy Incredible Hulk appeared and hastily plopped their tender heinies on the pots.

It's like this. Take one hot (well--kinda hot anyway), sticky (definitely sticky--100% humidity--you could wring the moisture out of the air) day. Add one majorly PMSing mommy and a naptime prolonged over two hours with the infamous Poop Game (you know the one, pooping at nap time because that prolongs having to go to sleep, Mommy has to come and change them, and it is more quiet and sneaky to do it when Mommy isn't around) for some already seriously overtired Fellers because they have been getting up so early in the morning. Top this with getting interrupted in the middle of making dinner with Boompas, his outstretched hand covered in some kind of dirt, whining at me, "Eeeewwww, Mommy. Wash it!" The dirt was of course some poop from his pants, now caked and hardened on his fingers and under his nails (are you disgusted? Believe me, so was I). So, mid-dinner, I had to wash and scrub a screaming, squirming poop encrusted toddler and then myself and hope like hell nothing burned on the oven. Oh, yeah, I whipped out the chairs with a quickness after that.

Of course, Eighty-Eight ( his story here) pushed my buttons, too, adding to the growing Mommy Hulk Syndrome. His trick of the day was Crayon Breaking. All day long he broke crayons throughout the house wherever he found them. Then, he collected all his work, as if proud of it, into a big broken crayon mountain on the coffee table. Nice. He has some kind of OCD about breaking crayons or something, I don't know. I will just have to add crayons of all things to the list of Things He Can't Have Unless Supervised. That list is so long now, I truly have pitty for his kindergarten teachers-to-be while simultaneously selfishly longing for him to be in school because of the break that will give me(I know that is terrible! I can't help it, though--the kid is a whirlwind!). Also, he again got into a bunch of stuff from all the hiding spots and cubbyholes of junk in my room at naptime and hid it under the covers-an old trick of his he sems to rediscover every time things are already going south in our humble abode(he can't nap in the same room as his brothers or he would enable the party of the century and, even though he is four, he still needs a nap or he is impossible at night--or maybe it is me that needs him to nap because twelve hours straight every day non-stop of his constant energy and knack for trouble would drive me right off the nearest cliff). Then there was the usual incessant teasing his brothers, taking their toys and regular-old-every-day wildness. He's my boy, I love him dearly, but he is a lot of work.

Back to the chair saga. One of our major problems from the last round was lack of training pants. We didn't have that many to begin with from EEF's training days, and many of those we had were hand-me-downs and the cheapies (of course!) that did not stop leaks very well. Plus many had been thrown away after some of EEF's more heinous poop episodes (like at relatives'--for some reson he decided that training was out when we were out--I think it was the whole overstimulation/lack of focus and attention thing with him).

A side note: I refuse to use disposable pull-ups to train my kids. They are worse than useless. I discovered with my daughter that they simply do not work. The kids can't feel when they are wet and they feel just like a diaper when they are on. She was really late (like almost all the way through kindergarten!--I was to the point of asking the doc if she had some kind of medical condition) training to stay dry at night. Finally, I wrapped her mattress in plastic garbage bags and put her to bed in underwear. The first night, she thought she would trick me, found the stash of pull-ups I saved in case we went overnight somewhere, stuck one on under her underwear because I am really that stupid that I would not notice a pull-up under her panties! I instantly ripped up and destroyed the few remaining pull-ups and she went to bed in undies that nigh. She wet the bed for maybe two nights and was completely trained after that.

As for the Fellers, my point is that we have very few and very poor quality training pants so that when the kids wet it goes everywhere--saturating the undies, soaking the pants, running down the legs, puddling on the (new, sadly) carpet, up the shirt, so that not only do I have a huge mess to clean up on the kid, I also have to scrub the floor and soak all the clothes. Bad enough with one kid, but I am training twins! Yikes! So no sooner do I clean one kid/floor mess when the other kid springs a leak. This all in the span of five minutes after they are excused from the chair, naturally. At least there are two chairs! It definitely appeared like Ms. Cheapskate was going to have to cough up some dough to solve this problem. So Ms. Cheapskate did some good 'ol research after she sent the kids to bed (early!). I found some Dappi vinyl outer/cotton inner washable trainers at BabyBestBuy.com. The best news is that they were on sale for only $0.99 apiece with a more than reasonable shipping rate of $5.95 per order under $100. I did not just buy them for their cheapness, though! I discovered a website called DiaperPin that gives reviews on trainers and these were rated as high as some of the "Big Name" (like bummies or scrunchies or something, I forget) reusable trainers that sold for anywhere from $9-12 apiece. The good scotswoman that I am, I quickly snatched up a buttload (no pun intended), 24, enough for two naughty heinies so that I don't have to be doing wash/carpet cleaning constantly during this process.

Hopefully, this will work. Boompas hates wetting himself in the undies. He screams, "No potty! No potty," tries to cross his legs to stop the spillage, yet still refuses to go on the potty. And true to form, Stink could care less about wetting his undies, but he is more amenable to sitting on the potty. Both the twins are now capable physically of learning. We just have to work on the willingness. We'll get there. Once I get them to sit on the pot, they calm down. Especially if they can do some quality cartoon watching to pass the time. I am fine with that. Well I have news for you, kid. Yes Potty. Mommy is done cleaning up poop hands. Mommy is done with the poop game at naptime. Mommy is done cleaning stinky, slimy, bulky, bulging big boy poop diapers. No more Hulk Mommy. Yes potty. We are going to do this.