Sunday, February 13, 2011

"I'm sick of looking at BUTTS!"

You probably remember that time that we decided to get three dogs instead of finishing our kitchen.  If you have never had a brand new puppy, not to mention two brand new puppies and an old farm dog, I don't know how I can convey to you how, once you bring them home, your life immediately revolves totally and completely around stool.  Literal stool.  As in feces.  Oh, and urine too.  In case you can't tell by now, I am usually a go-big-or-go-home kind of girl, so I am going to give you one guess as to what I decided we should do once we brought home three new dogs to a half-finished house.  You guessed it!  Potty train our son!

In retrospect (that's what I say every time I'm telling you about one of my bad ideas) we probably should have waited a few more weeks for that, but my "logic" (using the term loosely) was that we would already be on waste-product patrol and the carpet shampooer would already be at-the-ready and we would already be beside ourselves with irritation and sleeplessness and stench, so why not just get it over with?  Why not just rip off the gigantic band-aid of smelly digestive remnants?  Because potty-training three live creatures is easier than potty training two, haven't you heard?  And Tommy, having been married to me for over 10 years, knew that there was no reasoning with me at that point.  But he tried anyway (bless him), and lost, because I do not lose arguments.

As awful as you are imagining those two...three...seven hundred?...weeks to be, I can promise you it was worse.  Every time we turned around, someone was peeing on the carpet.  Or pooping in the closet.  Or chewing on an electrical chord to distract us from the fact that someone else was peeing and pooping on the carpet in the closet.  It was madness.  We were literally housebound.  And every 5 minutes..."Where's Paul?  Where's Chevy?  Quick!  Someone find them.  No!  Stop!  Stop peeing!  What the heck?!?!  You just peed, like, 6 minutes ago!!!".  Day after day after day of this, with no end in sight, until one night, my sweet daughter Lizzy burst into tears in the dining room.

"I am so sick of looking at BUTTS!" she sobbed.  "This is never, ever, ever going to end in a million years and even if it does, by the time Paul finally quits running around with no stupid pants on, then it's going to be Ceci's turn and we're gonna have to start aaaaaaaaaaallllllll oooooooooovvvvvvverrrrrrrrrrr  aaaaaaagggggggaaaaain!"  Followed by much flailing of many limbs and the mighty gnashing of all her teeth.  So we decided that we were wrong (yes, we were both wrong, because he agreed to my crazy plan, don't you see?) and tried to put a diaper back on Paul.

Have you ever been called stubborn?  Or contrary?  Perhaps evil?  Those are all things we really wanted to call him when he adamantly refused the diaper and, after days and days of pretending he didn't know what the heck we were talking about with all this ridiculous potty drivel, insisted that he be permitted to use the toilet.  "Because", he said in his best big boy voice, "diapers are for babies.  I am not a baby."  After we had decided to give up on potty training him.  Oh my good lord, raising children teaches you patience and fortitude like nothing else on this earth.  If you have children but you have not bought a fixer-upper off the internet, I can promise you that what you have already done is way harder than fixing up any house could ever be.  Because the house can't argue with you.  The house can't talk back.  And, unless you have a real bad situation on your hands, the house will not poop on the closet floor.


  1. Dwija, this post literally made my LOL. Your poor daughter Lizzy, lol.

    Potty training is evil, EVIL!

  2. Oh Nadia, it was all I could do to not literally LOL when she said it! You just never know how things are gonna go with a house full of kids, right? :)

  3. He actually refused the diaper?!? Did he then use the potty? Huh. Maybe I will try that with George. That sounds like a good idea. I wonder if I can get Alex to agree with me.

  4. Keep in mind that Paul is a very, very special kind of stubborn and contrary. Very special. I hope he uses his power for good instead of evil once he's all growed up!

  5. That was a clever idea to start him now while the carpet was going to be stained anyway. I can feel for your daughter. Poor gal.
    I just hope it was none of the kids chewing on the wiring. *lol*

  6. I had to click on this post because I'm so sick of TALKING about butts. (Anders is super into potty humor lately.) Looking at them is also unpleasant. It made me really dread my upcoming task of potty training Danica, but perhaps it isn't as bad as your simultaneous dog/toddler training.
    Poor Lizzy.


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