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Let Him Eat Cake!

OR A Failed Trip to Target and Other Tragedies

Last week Tosh, our great friend and a trusted babysitter turned 18, and we were very excited about being invited to her party. So…the day of the party, the kids and I went to Target to get Tosh a present. I only had thirty minutes to shop before I needed to be at my grandma’s house for lunch, so I had a mapped-out shopping plan in place. After I looked for the intended present for about five minutes, Sophie grew fussy and Joshua announced he had to go potty. I raced the cart from mid-store up to the restrooms at warp speed, and got the kids out and into the restroom. Sophie was elated to get out of the cart, but not so thrilled when I sat her down on the floor (I know, eew!) to hold Joshua onto the potty. (After this experience, I made it a point to teach him to pee standing up. DUH. Add this to the “Things that would’ve been helpful to do yesterday” list.) Sophie screamed while Joshua peed, and by the time he was done she was hysterical. Despite some helpful comments from the woman in the stall next to us (for the record, I do NOT want to talk to you while you are peeing, or my kids are peeing, or I am peeing. So just sit there and pee and mind your beeswax, mmmkay???), I shelved the shopping trip and we headed to the car so I could nurse her. We would just have to go to Target after lunch at Grandma’s.

That would’ve worked out perfectly if I hadn’t taken Joshua potty right before we left Grandma’s. But I did take him, and I did a very poor job of positioning him on the potty. So instead of in the toilet, his pee-pee went all over the back of his shorts and onto the floor of my grandma’s bathroom. Of course, I had no extra clothes for him, so he had to ride home in just his (damp) underwear and t-shirt. And last time I checked, it wasn’t kosher to take your kid to Target in just his (recently peed on) skivvies. So…no Target!!! Waaah! And no present for Tosh, unless I wanted to sacrifice my kids’ naps that afternoon. Which I did not.

That night, Bobby, the kids and I went presentless to the party. Tosh didn’t care about the presentless part, and we had a great time. One of her cousins was there and had kids just Joshua and Sophie’s age, and the kids were playing while Tosh opened presents from the less shopping-challenged guests. Joshua was kind of playing and eating at the same time, and I was watching him like a hawk because he sometimes has a problem chewing his food well enough. Sure enough, he started to gag, and I yelled, “Bobby!” to get my husband’s attention, and motioned for him to hold his plate under Joshua in case he ralphed. Happily, it was a false alarm and the kids continued playing. Whew! Joshua and the other little guy continued jumping up and down while the babies played on the floor. Then out of the blue, with no gagging sounds whatsoever, Joshua projectile puked! It shot straight out and landed mostly on the floor, but some also splashed on Sophie’s head and hand!!! EEEEWWW!!!!

Joshua calmly surveyed his work, looked me in the face and said, “Can I still have birthday cake?”

The other mom grabbed her kiddos while Bobby and I scrambled to clean a) our daughter and b) our friend’s carpet, all the while trying to convince the other mom that Joshua did not have the plague, just an overactive gag reflex. Much to my embarrassment, this interrupted the present opening, but the guest of honor handled it really well. After all, it’s not really a party until someone pukes (on their sister), right??

And yes, I did let him have birthday cake.

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Gotta Go!: The Public Potty Predicament

The lovely Pinks & Blues Girls are having a contest to go along with their Ladies Room Initiative. It’s called the Gotta Go Giveaway, and as usual, I wanna win! So here’s my story about the most frustrating public restroom experience I’ve ever had.

About three weeks ago, I took the kiddos to Big Lots, which I frequent, because I am extreeeemely thrifty. Joshua, Sophia and I were scoping out the toy aisle (having already loaded up on Gerber baby food for 25 cents a jar, woot woot!) when I smelled something stinky. “Joshua, do you need to go potty?” I asked my three-year-old. “No,” he answered, meaning, of course, “Yes, but I want to stand here and look at toys, so I’m currently in poop denial.” Even though I wasn’t keen on taking him to the potty at Big Lots, I was even less keen on him pooping his pants in my car on the way home, so I pressed the issue and we went in search of the ladies’ room. Which I soon found was a one-holer that was already occupied. So we waited and I encouraged my son to hold it (he had by now come to terms with needing to poop) while we waited for the person in the stall. Finally the lady came out and I rushed my kiddos into the stall. You can’t take the cart in the rest room (not that it would have fit inside anyways), so of course, there was nothing I could do with Sophia (8 months) but set her on the FLOOR, which much to my horror was quite dirty. So I set her down as far away from the toilet as possible, while still keeping her in the stall with me. I took her little hands and put my purse in them, praying she would just hold on to the purse and not touch the floor. Then I held Joshua on the toilet while he pooped. He is super-skinny and his buns will fall right through a regulation-sized public toilet, so I still have to hold him on. (Since women of child-bearing age are the target customers of most retail stores, including Big Lots, I think it is ridiculous that NONE of them has a child-sized potty! Or sink!!)

So anyways, he laid down a deuce, I wiped him, collected my daughter, and hoofed it out of there! Since I definitely didn’t want Sophie to sit out on the floor under the sink with all the dirty paper towels that were on the ground while I helped Joshua wash his hands, I just hosed all three of us down with Purell when we got in the car.

I suppose it could’ve been worse, but it was very frustrating and YUCKY to have my kids in that situation. So, the moral of the story is: Closeout prices do NOT buy nice restroom facilities!

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The Turd that Broke the Camel’s Back

If you’re a regular Mommin’ It Up reader (and really, why wouldn’t you be?), you know it took me just shy of 493 years to potty train my son Joshua. I gave up a couple of times, and re-started, but the FIRST time I gave up, for the longest period of time, was last September when Joshua was about 30 months old and I was about seven & a half months pregnant with my daughter.

Let me tell you about the day I finally realized the boy just wasn’t ready. I was preparing to take a shower, and I thought I’d be a genius and bring his little potty chair in the bathroom and remove his pants in case he had to go while I was getting clean. I did just that and then got in the shower. A few minutes into it when I’ve got shampoo in my hair, I hear him say, “I don’t have to go potty.” Translation: “I REALLY have to go potty but I don’t want to sit on the potty.” I stuck my head out of the shower. He had “that look” in his eye. You know, the look that signifies that a bowel movement is imminent and unstoppable. Here’s how it went down:

Me: Joshua, do you have to go potty?
Joshua: No, I don’t have to!
Me: Joshua, sit on the potty!
Joshua: No I don’t have to!
Me: JOSHUA SIT ON THE POTTY!
Joshua: I don’t have to go potty!

Joshua then proceeded to brace himself against his play table that we kept in the bathroom to entertain him, get wide-eyed and red faced, shake, grunt, and push out the biggest turd I have ever seen. I mean it was like, half the child’s body weight. It shot out of him with incredible force and broke into several pieces on the bathroom floor.

Did I mention I was 7.5 months pregnant, and soaking wet, with shampoo in my hair?

It was at that moment as I gazed with soap-filled eyes upon the many pieces of turd on my bathroom floor, and my little boy’s astonished face, that I realized this child was NOT going to be potty trained before the second child came along! So I rinsed my hair, jumped (okay, lumbered) out of the shower, toweled off my ginormous body, and cleaned up the turd. Then I put a diaper on my son and put potty training on the shelf, deciding I’d much rather clean poop off my kid’s behind than off my bathroom floor!

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