Brushing with Theodore John

Brushing your teeth is complicated, but I've come up with a step-by-step tutorial to help you first timers out there.

First, grip your toothbrush at the top like this so you can eat the toothpaste off.
Wait, that's not right.

Here we go. Hold the bottom grippy part and stick the top part in your mouth.

Move it up and down and let the spit run down your chin.

Don't be afraid to GO A LITTLE CRAZY with it.

Then swallow the yummy baby toothpaste...hold  up, I found a shower curtain!

This has been Brushing with Theodore John. Tune
in next time for How to Play in the Toilet, Undetected.

Potty Tales and Potty Trails, etc.

The last week and a half before Brian went back to work we started potty training in earnest. Also at that time and directly related to potty training time, we purchased a carpet cleaner. We took off the boys’ pants and diapers and let them run around in their bare buns. There were many frustrating accidents on the carpet, but it was so nice to have two of us to deal with the accidents. I would clean up the perpetrator, throw all contaminated clothes in the washer, put on new clothes, apply the proper amount of (or possibly too much) scolding, while Brian poured in the hot water and fired up the carpet cleaner to take out the nasty potty spot and/or potty trail.

Two days before Brian went back to work Clark had four incidents of peeing on the carpet. We took them to the playground with the potty chair in the van and they still both wet all over the mulch, their cIothes, shoes, and playground equipment. I was absolutely dreading being the only one to deal with two constantly moving pee and poo fountains.

BUT. During the past two Brian-less days there hasn’t been a single carpet accident, only a couple outside accidents of which I do not wish to elaborate on. I’m so proud! They also have started wanting to go, and actually going at the same time—we have a potty chair as well as our potty seat that goes on the toilet so they can do it in the same bathroom. I’ve spent a lot of time coaching from the bathroom footstool, and more intimate time in close quarters with the toilet, spraying urine, and warm feces than I hope to ever have again. I know you’re gagging. I just feel like I need to share my pain with someone.

Gettin' it done, teamwork style

Today we ventured to the park with no diapers and Clark wet himself after running around for awhile, but Cal got to experience for the first time the awesomeness that is being male in the outdoors when nature calls. Lucky.

 
The boys are doing well in the potty department and I’m proud. Next step is getting them to use public toilets so we can be real people and leave the house occasionally. They have some classes at the community center they will start in a few weeks so hopefully they will be easier to take places at that point. Is hoping to not experience anymore warm shit dropping into my hand too much to ask?

The sticker chart was bursting so I had to lengthen it!

Since this is not only a blog but also my scrapbook, here are some other pictures from recent happenings.

Went to Totally Trucks. Yes, Cal has bacon and eggs band-aids on his knees.

Clark ran the little excavator.



Worked a construction job with Baby Alex

Were in Aunt Julie's wedding



Got the rings down the aisle

Drank smoothies

Brian made pickles.

Put fins to the left, fins to the right...

Fading graffiti

Even less graffiti

Guitar wall

Made a Cheerio bird feeder

Built a tower all by himself

Drank more smoothies

I Feel You Better

The boys have been playing little games that involve health and hygiene, and in general, "feeling you better," which is their take on the sentiment of helping someone feel better. 

The multi-purpose toilet/astronaut helmet

I've been trying half-heartedly to potty train them over the past couple weeks, but they still have not done any of their business in the toilet and they are still terrified to sit on it. But they love to play that they are going to the bathroom. They sit on a container we use for toys and pretend to go potty. Oddly, they use the same container upside-down as an astronaut's helmet when they play space, so that's nice. Today Clark “went potty” in the container on the couch. He waved goodbye to the potty and “flushed it away.” He then requested that I get into the "tub," and motioned to the floor next to the couch. As soon as I sat down, Cal ran to the bathroom to get the stool I sit on when I bathe them. He put the stool up next to me and washed my hair. Clark gave me toys he called bath toys and cleaned them up for me when I was ready to get out. Cal covered me in a pretend lizard towel (his bath towel) and then Clark covered me in a pretend duck towel (his bath towel). Clark pretended to change my diaper while Cal rubbed pretend lotion on his hands and put it on my face. It was quite a refreshing break.

A not-so-refreshing habit that Clark has picked up is attacking boogers in noses with wipes. Now, these are typically imaginary boogers, and the nose is mine or Brian’s or Cal’s and it hurts. He isn’t playing when he does it. He squints his eyes and scrunches his lips together and focuses in on the offending nose. It’s fantastic. So fantastic that even the stinging sensation of inhaling a wipe is worth it just for a second. I wish I had a video camera in my nose (Hmm, never said that before) to capture his intense focus. The other day he grabbed the bridge of Brian’s nose with his other hand for leverage and grunted, “Almost got it,” (relieved sigh), “There we go.”

They’ve also taken to pretending to put in and take out contacts. They first rub their hands with imaginary Purell “like Daddy does!” before they tell me to lay down so they can take my contact out. “Great job, Mommy! You held still!”

The most prevalent game is still the sick game. Often their stuffed animals and toys have inexplicable maladies that must remedied by little tiny doses of medicine with the baby spoons that they take out of the drawer by themselves or medicine droppers. They use their high little baby voices to say things like, “It’s okay, Little Ducky. You’ll be okay. I feel you better.” The injured animal always requires a kiss, medicine, or petting from Brian and me also. Lately they insist that I tell the patient, “Your mommy is coming soon.” 

An entire cast of zoo critters who need medical care via medicine droppers

Today Cal is sick and Clark has been helping "feel him better" all morning. First he wanted to sing a song to him. He sang Jump Up, a Dan Zanes' favorite, only modifying a few of the lyrics, and then said he was going to make up his own song called "Farmer's Market." It was lovely-- all about a shark eating candles. (Duh! What else would a song with that title be about?) I think it actually did helped Cal feel better because he was smiling. Later, after Cal woke up from a nap, Clark propped up his guitar and played it like an upright bass and sang another song. A Jimmy Buffet song, of course. Hopefully Clark's continued nurturing care will help feel Cal better today.

I'm Gonna Go Potty

Sometime about a year and a half ago, I morphed from a normal person who politely excuses herself from social exchanges in order to use the restroom, to a person who unabashedly and flippantly proclaims to everyone within earshot that “I’M GONNA GO POTTY.”  It’s normal in my mom groups. You tell your kid, “Hey sweetie, I’m gonna go potty, I’ll be right back. You play here with your friends. See you soon.” Obviously this negates the need to turn to your mom friend and tell her that you are going to use the restroom or bathroom. What is she, stupid? No. Gradually, the terms restroom and bathroom fade from your vocabulary except for when you have to clean one. There are good reasons for announcing your intent to go potty.

Modeling: Your kid needs to know that everyone goes potty and they do it in the toilet. Soon enough (or not soon enough) they will be in full-blown potty training mode. Simply saying I’m going to the bathroom or restroom might just be mysterious at first and they won’t know what you’re actually doing in there.

Comfort: If you just disappear from the room with no announcement, especially if you are somewhere unfamiliar, your kid (Calvin) might (will) begin screaming maniacally, thinking he has been heartlessly left behind while I leave the house. Or, he might work himself up to panic mode by repeating "Where did Mommy go?" over and over, faster and faster. Explaining your absence as going potty makes perfect sense. Mom will be back in about a minute. She's doing something she often does. Nothing unusual about it. It comforts.

Yesterday while the boys were napping and Brian and I were talking in the living room, I left, absent-mindedly announcing, “Be right back. I’m gonna go potty.” The awesome thing about it is that he didn’t even notice and I didn’t draw his attention to it. I instead mulled this potty phenomenon over in my head and decided to write about it.

The potty policy is actually an example of language shifts that parents make (or should make) based on their audience. Around the boys we try not to use certain words or talk badly about people. Of course that’s not always the way things go down. I was disappointed the other day when Cal started thundering, “STUPID TUNA!” at the tuna he couldn’t get onto his spoon. Oops. I’m sure there will be more exciting first words, but I’d like to put them off as long as I can.

I change the way I talk when I’m exclusively around adults, and since that is not often, I find myself wincing when I say things I used to always say, like “that sucks” or “frickin” or various other soft swear(ish) words. (Call it potty talk… boo-ya!) Who wants a two year-old yelling that he wants his frickin’ train at a playdate? Talk about wilting in embarrassment. The alternative to this is pausing and silently mouthing, when appropriate, a swear word while talking to a mommy friend and slicing hot dogs and serving mac and cheese to the wee ones. If you don’t, mark my words, they will hear whatever word it is and repeat it, as they do with most new words they hear. Should this happen, whatever you do, don’t freak out and tell your kid to never say that word, it is not a nice word, blah, blah, blah. If your kid is anything like mine, they will enjoy the reaction and try the word out over and over and you’ll feel you’ve paid your penance and then some. Not that I know from experience.

I am going to try to tone down the “going potty” and try out the “going to the bathroom” approach to see what happens now that my boys have no doubt in their minds what happens in a bathroom, and continue to keep the potty talk on hold. What’s the opposite of a potty-mouth? Flower-mouth? I’ll keep trying to be that.

Evolution of the Common Bathroom

First off, let me do a survey of a common bathroom before children.  And by common I don’t necessarily mean your average bathroom, but the bathroom that is shared with your guests, the one near the common area in your house.

In this scenario, the house has only two bathrooms, which makes it necessary to turn the guest bathroom into the kid(s)’ bathroom on his/her arrival. This is the bathroom that, when you’re first nesting, gets the fluffy, monogrammed, high thread-count towels that were wedding gifts. They are probably a light color, providing the openness and tidiness that your guests deserve.

There are some expensive-looking stress relief candles and exotic-smelling room spray artfully displayed on the otherwise bare, spotless counter. Perhaps potpourri is nestled in a delicate basket on top of the toilet and even a tiny carafe of mouthwash stands discreetly next to the room spray. The faucet has been shined and reflects the guests’ faces when they slip into the bathroom during your strictly adult party. The floor is still spotless from when you moved in and scrubbed the grout between the tiles with a toothbrush, what was it, four years ago? Pretty much all the room needs to stay clean is a quick sweeping and brief swipe of the toilet bowl every couple months. The rug is thick and deep and envelops the feet of the guests in foot-hugs upon each visit, evoking contended sighs. The mirrors reflect the bright white lights, the neat paint job, and of course the smiling guest, who feels refreshed after a squeaky-clean bathroom experience.

When you first have the baby or twins, (and from here on I’ll just assume they’re twins, since mine are and it’s easier for me to write that way.) the transformation of the bathroom is gradual. A few precious washcloths appear in a tidy new basket on the back of the toilet, folded. Maybe one time you leave out that blue snot-sucker thing when someone comes over and you get hot with embarrassment and vow to never leave it in plain sight again. You accidentally leave the shower curtain open, exposing the little tub inside the big tub, and the rubber ducky thermometer. Oh well. It’s kind of cute, right? Most people visiting in those first weeks after the birth of the babies are there to see the babies anyway.

Then suddenly they are big enough to sit on their own in the tub and they get one of those faucet covers so when they bonk their heads it doesn’t hurt. It looks like a duck or a frog—friendly. Then there are the primary-colored awkwardly-stacking buckets and the plastic vehicles that squirt water: boat, plane, car, etc.  Soon the squirty purple scooter inevitably ends up behind the toilet just out of view, where it leaks its contents onto the floor to gather dust and you see it every once-in-awhile and are grossed out and reach to pick it up, but one of the twins is about to pee all over the floor and probably the wall while he waits for his clean diaper so you don’t get it or see it until next time and you reach for it just when one of boys falls into the tub in his clothes because he wants the teddy bear back that he threw in that is now swirling around in the water. Soon it’s pointless to even think about the stupid purple scooter and it becomes part of the backdrop of the room.

As the boys become more and more brazen, even downright obnoxious, in the tub, they splash large quantities of water on the floor so it is only natural to lay down a towel and of course you need a stool to sit on next to the tub so your knees don’t explode every time you bathe them. At first you pick up the towel after bathtime but as you learn that there is only so much time in the day (I don’t have time to spend picking the towel  up each time someone is coming over!) you stop that and leave the stool and the towel in front of the bath in the name of time management.

Then there are the washcloths. All the washcloths. Each bathtime you need at least two—one for each kid, and sometimes more. Who could possibly remember to throw them in the laundry after each bath and each handwashing or crusted-booger washing? And furthermore who can always remember there are dirty clothes on the floor and sometimes even dirty diapers? Once the monsters are out of the tub they are rejuvenated, naked forces to be reckoned with and need to get dressed and either into bed or into clothes for the day.

Behind the curtain...

Add to all this the occasional illness and the plethora of medicines and accompanying dispensers for each of them. Who wants to open the medicine cabinet to daintily finger through everything when you can just leave them there on the counter, roughly evenly spaced, in order to see them quicker and easier for any late-night catastrophes? There are the mini-toothbrushes and toothpaste with Thomas the Tank Engine or Pooh or whatever. No need to put those back in the cabinet of course. This whole routine is all going to happen twice more before you blink your eyes.

And the floor. Good God, the floor. Most likely under the corner of the cupboard you will find a car, a finger puppet, a drumstick for the play drum, a ball of some kind that may or may not have been in the toilet, one of the Buzz Lightyear squirt guns, and probably a small collection of raisins. There's no good time to sweep.


Really the catch-all place for me is the basket that used to contain the various neatly rolled-up hand towels and bath salts. I’m just going to come out and say that right now in the basket is a pair my underwear from when someone was folding laundry and mistook it for a washcloth. Why have I not put it in my drawer? Because when I think of it a boy is slapping at the toilet paper and squealing in delight as it pours to floor in a white flourish, while the other one drops a spoon in the toilet. I mean, that’s the most likely reason.

Also in the basket currently is a sock, powder, Q-tips (clean or dirty? Who’s to say?), bath crayons, nail clippers, regular diapers, night diapers, wipes, baby soap and shampoo, various containers of bubbles, butt cream, a plastic turtle, a cup holder from the stroller (?), Elmo bath books, foamy bath colors, and the other Buzz Lightyear squirt gun. And I didn’t even dig all the way to the bottom on one side because one time liquid baby soap spilled all over inside the basket and I found out by jamming my hand in it and I’m not in the mood to do that again.

Which brings me to further discussion of the floor between the tub and the toilet. It’s probably my least favorite space of all time. The soap easily spills out of the containers as I’m wrestling a boy into submission so I can do the unspeakable horrors of cleaning behind his ears. Each time I set the soap down I set it down there in that space. That unforgiving space. A thick, sticky residue sometimes builds up there, plastering the towel to the floor. Then there’s the cold humidifier the doctor suggested we get when she thought the boys had croupe, which the boys call the “water fan.” We only ever used it a couple nights and don’t have a great place to store it so we have it just around in the bathroom.

The bathroom looks just like it sounds—like a couple aisles at Target threw up all over an already- dirty bathroom. Sometimes I’ll go several days without even noticing the bathroom at all. When I do though, I take a deep breath (but not too deep because there’s probably a dirty diaper lurking) and remember what it used to be like and how predictable it was and that someday I’ll have a bathroom like it again. I might even miss this ridiculous chaos, so I’ll embrace the evolution of my bathroom, wipe down the sink and clean the sticky mystery-clump in the rug before guests come over. Take me or leave me, my bathroom is a maelstrom of well-loved plastic toys, damp lizard towels, and various forgotten fluids of the medicinal and bodily types.