Ramblings of a Mom with Toddlers

Potty Training Highlights:

Jack woke up this morning with dry underwear. It was his second time. Ben was dry the morning before last and naps have been consistently dry (with the exception of Ben on the afternoon of Day Five!) Ben didn't go poop at all yesterday, so I was very pleased when he went this morning before playgroup; his attitude seems to be improving as it concerns going Number Two! I've been out publicly with the boys twice in the past two days and both times, they asked to use the potty and we came home dry! This is definitely progress. Still hoping for more progress as Ben gets more accustomed to going more consistently.

Here's the other struggle we're having: since we've been encouraging the boys to have more control over their lives in the bathroom, they've been pushing for more independence. For a two-and-a-half year old, this translates to rebellion. Pushing the boundaries. Testing the waters. And it screamed loudest today.

Ben seemed to be the one pushing today. We were leaving for playgroup and so I let the boys play outside for one minute while I loaded the van. This is not unusual; since our van is parked outside on the driveway, the boys will commonly play with sticks on our small patch of grass while I get things situated. Ben started running down the sidewalk. He went past the sidewalk line the boys understand to be "out of bounds" and looked back to see my reaction. I reminded him that he had passed the line and to come back before he got a spanking. He kept running. He ran another ten feet and turned around. He knows I won't play this game. If I run after him, he keeps on running. Plus, I'm eight months pregnant. There was NO way I was going to engage his rebellion. But Jack was.

Jack started running after him so Ben kept on running, giggling the whole time. I yelled again and realized he was just going too far. At this point, he was about 10/12 houses down the street! I didn't know what to do! I grabbed Jack, quickly buckled him into his car seat and drove down the road to where he was floundering on the sidewalk. Ben had gotten disorientated and was starting to cry, wondering where his mommy had gone. Two cars had stopped along the road at this point, wondering who the crying toddler belonged to. I felt horrible. What a bad, unfit mother they must have thought I was.

I waved to the guy in the red car and gave him a nod so he understood that this roaming toddler was mine. He gave me a look that said, "Gosh, what are you thinking, letting this boy out all alone?" and I just kept running to Ben. He ran into my arms; I could tell that he was scared. Rather than give him a spanking, I tried to console him and remind him why he should listen to mommy. We talked about the incident on the way to playgroup and he kept saying, "I listen, I stay safe." It could have been worse. He didn't go on the road, he wasn't hit or taken and I didn't go into labor. I suppose it could have been much worse.

But that's just one example of him testing the boundaries. The other has come with sleeptimes.

The boys enjoy the new freedom of being able to use the bathroom whenever the need arises, so they've been exercising this right just as they get into their beds. This might not be such a big deal if they were singletons, or if they had their own room. But neither of those is the case. When one gets out of bed, so does the other. If not just to keep up with the excitement. Then, after both boys have exhausted the possibility of being able to squeeze out just one more drop, they're both bouncing all over the room. I can't even tell you how frustrating this is. We're not supposed to force them to go potty, but we give them more than three opportunities before 'light's out.' If they don't take advantage of those, how can I deprive them of when they DO admit they need to go?

So we're coming back to basics. We're going back to what we learned from our Marc Weissbluth education. Thank God, my husband is willing to play the heavy again. This pregnant mommy just doesn't have the energy to keep putting them back in their beds when they get out, more than once a day.

The other areas we're having issues is in hearing a direction, knowing the consequences and knowingly choosing the wrong thing. Over and over. I had to take two separate toys away from Ben today because he just wouldn't listen. They're not usually that beligerant.

So here's hoping. We're making progress. We're still trying. We're not there yet, but we're getting better. And I guess there's nothing more we could do!

Except take long walks at Target after they go down, buying a hundred dollars of merchandise I probably don't need and then coming home to blog all about it. Yeah, I guess there IS something more I could do: sleep.