The Potty Diary

I've never claimed to be really good at anything related to parenting...but one area where I'd surely be considered "slow" is in the potty training department. I suck. No really. I'm awful. I have no idea what I'm doing and I usually resort to doing all of the things that they tell you never, under any circumstances, to do.

So, with all that we have going on, I should have been thrilled when Sawyer went pee pee on the potty for the first time at school last week. Actually, I was thrilled. Was I really going to get away with not having anything to do with {screwing up} potty training? Was this why I was paying Sawyer's preschool enough money to put him through one year at private university? I've always said that I would pay big bucks to have someone come to our house and potty train my kids. I even googled it. This person doesn't exist.

So here we are, one week later, Sawyer only wants to wear underwear...he's peed on the potty numerous times. So I should be celebrating, right? I'm not. You know why? Because I'm on 24-hour poop watch.

See, with Rylan, she knew not to poop in her pants. I don't blame her. It's truly disgusting if you think about it {though I suppose going in a diaper is only slightly less repulsive}. Ry would just hold out long enough until we put her diaper on before nap or bed time. Genius! As a result, I never had to stalk her and play poo poo police...aka, give her a massive complex about pooping on the potty or in her pants.

And then there's Sawyer. Sweet #2 has a problem with, well, going #2. Actually, the problem is that he'll go anywhere but the potty. I don't get it. If you can sit and pee, what's so scary about sitting and pooping? And it's precisely the reason I {and by I, I mean, his teachers at school} didn't train him to pee standing up. I thought that would just further confuse the situation. If he pees standing up, will he poop standing up too? I've clearly given this a ton of thought.

We've known his "signs" now for a while. When he has to "go"...he hides. He's so certain of the "feeling" that now he just says "mommy, I'm hiding." So, this should be an easy transition, right? Wrong.

So we set out on mission. 1. Buy new underwear {the ones that I'd bought him a year ago for Christmas were so tight around his legs, they were cutting off the circulation. Wishful thinking that he'd be potty trained last Christmas I guess.} 2. Buy a "poo poo present." 3. And then come home, poop on the potty and sing kumbaya. Yeah, not so much.

Here's what actually happened. We picked out the underwear {Spiderman and Lightning McQueen, in case you're wondering.} Picked out the "poo poo present" {Buzz Lightyear gun}. Came home. Put the present on the shelf and waited. About 20 minutes later {and once I was in the middle of breast feeding Saxon and completely tied down} I heard, "Mommy, I'm gonna hide." {Fuuuuuuck!} I immediately de-latch #3, jump over the couch and make a bee-line for Sawyer. He immediately screamed in fear of mommy running full-force towards him and proceeded to run away from me, crying and literally shitting his pants in fear. Meanwhile, the baby is screaming and about to roll off the couch. Sawyer is crying and hiding on the other side of the dining room table and I'm yelling, "No, Sawyer, don't poop!" I'm pretty sure I did everything they tell you NOT to do in the "Everybody Poops" parent handbook.

After I settled him down, I was shocked that he actually had managed to hold it. So we sat back down. I started feeding the baby again and watched as Sawyer sat there in agony. Now I was concerned because, not only was he going to poop his pants, he was going to poop his pants on my couch. As I begged and pleaded for him to "just try and sit on the potty," he insisted that he no longer had to go. Yeah, ok. Sure buddy.

About five minutes later, he made a run for it. But not to the potty. He ran to the closet. I ran after him. Both of us screaming, I scooped him up and ran into the bathroom. It was too late. The Spiderman underwear were ruined after only 30 minutes of wear. Sawyer was crying. Saxon was crying. Mommy was crying. He sat on the potty devastated. I sat there with the tub of wipes and antibacterial hand soap and explained that accidents happen and that it was ok.

Sawyer called Eric on the phone and told him what happened and how he wasn't going to get the "poo poo present." Just as we were hanging up, I heard the slightest "plop." Sawyer's face lit up. "Mommy! poo poo came out." We looked. He was right. The smallest poop you'd ever seen had gone in the toilet.

"Dammit," I thought. Now I have to give him the damn present for a fluke poop. He was thrilled.

Fast forward to now and he's actually gone a few times, though, not every time. I'm still living in a constant state of poop anxiety. I need to let it go. It's freaking everyone out. And between hoping that Sawyer DOESN'T poop and making sure that Saxon DOES, it's all I'm freaking doing these days.

He did go at school and now school has deemed him "potty trained" so we save $50 a month on tuition. I guess I really was paying a potty training guru and just didn't know it. Now who can I pay to come clean it up when he has an accident?

Baby, 1. Mommy, 0.

It would be fair to say that I've been on the front lines of newborn baby war these last three weeks. Don't get me wrong, I knew what I was getting into since I've done it before...but holy baby Batman! It's just taking me a while to find my newborn mojo, I suppose.

I've literally sat down to blog about the current state of our house {insanity} dozens of times but have found that I only have about two minutes between breastfeeding, crying {me, included} and someone asking for "more juice" {Eric, included} that all my thoughts are cut short.

So, in honor of these two free minutes, I thought a "you know you have a newborn" Top 10 list would be appropriate:

You know you have a newborn when:

10. You pour the breast milk into the bottle without the drop-in and are totally unfazed by the puddle of milk at your feet {thanks Dede}

9. In a contest between you and Pamela Anderson on who has the most ridiculous boobs, you win in a landslide.

8. You don't leave your bedroom {let alone your house} without sunglasses on.

7. You'd welcome a trip to the dentist or OBGYN for just 30 minutes of "alone" time

6. You'd risk a cell phone ticket for talking while driving because the car is now the only place where the baby will sleep and you can chat for longer than 2 minutes

5. You want to marry your Keurig

4. You unload baby and stroller from the car, lock the doors, head into the market, finish shopping and leave the store to find that you left the passenger door wide open.

3. You wake up at 3 am mid-walk to the nursery and wonder if you're coming or going

2. You just remembered that you had to pee this morning...but it's now 5pm

1. You blog one-handed

PS. To all my friends who have checked in on me to make sure I haven't drowned myself in the bathtub, thank you. This too shall pass. Big hugs.

The Saxon{ater}

We did it! He's here. Well, actually, he arrived on March 25, 2011. So he's been here for 12 days. And that's how long it took me to get my shit together to sit down and write about it. Phew. Switching to zone defense, NOW!

So here's how it went down. On Thursday afternoon we went to El Torito to watch the SDSU NCAA Tourney game {aka, witness my bracket go down the toilet.} I ordered what I thought would be the most "mild" thing on the menu. Taquitos. To my surprise, these bad boys came smothered in hot sauce. Oh well. Down the hatch. At this point, I was eating everything in sight. I figured maybe my effort to order something less-spicy would pay off. It didn't. In fact, I'm pretty sure it had something to do with putting me in to labor.

At about 3:30 am on March 25, I woke up with strong-enough-to-make-your-eyes-bleed heartburn. Standard, at this point. I expected it. What I didn't expect were the contractions I started having about 5 minutes later. And then they didn't stop. So I started timing them and, sure enough, they were regular. Every 5-7 minutes. So we got the bag packed. Got the kids dressed. Called the doc. She said to head to L&D since it was my 3rd baby and she was going to induce me the next day anyway {see Ricki, it all worked out.}

Then we hopped in the car and Eric did what any super-cool-under-pressure husband would do...he drove like a complete jackass. Taking speed bumps at 20 miles an hour. Weaving in and out of traffic. The kids thought they were at Disneyland. "Weeee!" Mind you, both of their schools are literally about 2 blocks away. I think Eric envisioned delivering the baby in the Yukon and since we have a very strict never-look-below-the-knees-while-wife-is-in-labor policy he was determined to get me to the hospital asap.

We got to Hoag. Got hooked up to the monitors. Nurse checked me. I'm still 2 cm. {FML} For those of you with no idea how this whole watermelon vs lemon thing works, you have to be 10 cm dilated to push the baby out. 2 cm is nothing. In fact, my guess is that most women with multiple children walk around for the rest of their lives 2 cm dilated. Really. Sneeze and be 2 cm dilated. Shit.

So Eric and I did what we do best. We started making the nurse laugh. There was no way we were getting sent home. We turned on the charm and Megan the nurse ate it up. An hour later when I was 2.5 cm dilated {FML, again} she came in to tell me that my doc said "go ahead and break her water." Yes! Amazing. Love my doc. So they did. And about an hour after that I was 4 cm. Ok, getting somewhere.

Then they hooked up the pitocin. And the contractions started coming on strong. For about 3 hours I laid there until I had to tell Eric to stop playing inappropriate You Tube clips because laughing with gnarly contractions wasn't working for me. I begged for my epidural. And then lost my spot in line because the woman next door was 6 cm and I was, just guess...still a 4. Bitch. {FML, cubed.}

45 minutes later. Epidural in. And I'm ready to rock and roll. They upped my pitocin dosage to a-freaking-lot and at 4pm I was ready to push. But I didn't. My doctor was stuck in traffic. So I sat there. My nurse actually told me not to move for fear the baby would come out. {Lovely visual, I know.} Finally, at 4:30 the doc arrived and after 5 pushes, he was out. All 8lbs, 4oz of him...and a week early too. Biggest baby yet. Rylan was 6.13 and Sawyer was 6.7.

Saxon Cash Beach. He's just been an awesome kid thus far {but since I put it in writing, I'm sure he'll make me take it back at some point.} In the hospital we actually had to ask the nurse if he was ok because he was sleeping so much. I know, right? Crazy. He spends his days eating, sleeping and, well, pooping. Typical.

Here he is. Someday, I'll invest in a camera that doesn't take blurry pictures.

Saxon Cash Beach. 3.25.11

And, in case you're wondering, I 100% brushed my hair and put on make-up after I delivered and before I took pics. I was tired of having hospital pics of myself where I looked like I was just beaten over the head with a baby. So, yeah, bring on the smoke and mirrors.

"Beach Party of 5, please don't come to our restaurant for a couple of years"

I mean, come on with the cuteness!

Heading home. Me: "Do we have to?"

Let the real fun begin!