To Pee or Not to Pee, That is my Dead-Serious Question

I remember those good old days when I had a little infant daughter, and she would make a little mustard yellow poop that smelled like artificial butter.  That was a good thing.  My husband and I looked at her poop, examined it, made sure it was the right color, the right consistency, even the right smell.  This is what we did.  And we were proud of it.  We meticulously made sure that she had the right amount of poop versus pee diapers and were convinced life was grand.

All of a sudden, the mustard became like some sort of olive condiment, which I wasn’t feeling. The smell changed, the consistency changed, and needless to say, we changed.  (No pun intended.)  I could not imagine how many diapers one person could go through in one 24 hour day.  A person who only had milk and eventually different types of pureed produce.  I was over zealous to get the potty going.  But, then I had a surprise.  I was "with child" again, and now I would be changing diapers for more than one person.  I matured from mother to machine.  I tried to get my 13 month old baby to sit on the potty, but she rather get up and run around, as my newborn cried and pooped, and I was, in the midst of all of this, unknowingly drifting into a mental breakdown.

Skipping the insanity that I went through (that's better left for another day), I found myself yearning for some potty guidance.  I needed the potty whisperer to come in and take all my cares away because I couldn't handle diapers galore, and not to mention, I was heavily doped up on several anti-this and anti-thats.

It took some time and some effort from others, but eventually, both kids were in the disposable underwear for toddlers.  That was my slow start to getting them to fight the urge of pooping and peeing upon their little persons, and instead, sit on a toilet bowl.  They started getting the idea.  First the girl, then the boy.  The potty became their friend and their confidant.  They began to trust the bowl, instead of fight it.

As I look back, while waiting in a handicapped stall at Target holding up my daughter over the bowl, so not to get any germs, all the while my son is dancing around the stall as he tries to prevent himself from having an accident, I wish I had a diaper.  I mean, after stopping at every store bathroom, in the middle of grocery shopping, at the library (upstairs and downstairs), three times during their first cinema experience, an occasional stop along the interstate (we really had no other choice) I began to wish for the days I could just get a baby wipe and slap a new diaper on.  I can't stand going to the bathroom with my kids.  I can't stand it.  They are too short to reach the sink, so I have to hold them up, they want to get like 16 ounces of soap for one hand wash and they rather use the obnoxious dryers instead of paper towels.  People in the parking lots of these places can hear these ridiculously loud dryers.  They always pick the creepiest places to have to use the bathroom.  And there's two of them!! So everything I do for her, I have to do for him.  Then, of course, I have to answer the call of nature myself from time to time, so instead of shopping for an hour or two, I spend my afternoons learning where every bathroom in the state is!

I am so thrilled that my kids are "potty-trained.”