Adventures in Potty-Training...

I really do believe that potty training is what put the "Terrible" in "Terrible Twos". Ugh. My little Carmela - so sweet and so innocent and cute. Until of course I look over and she is sitting in a wet puddle happily playing away. Let's rewind about 8 months or so to my carefree life when all I had to do was bring a diaper or two and some wipes and we could be off to do whatever we had to do for the day. Ahh, the memories. Then one day, she pulled her diaper off and said in a squeaky voice "Potty!". YES! This was it.. the SIGN. She was ready to be potty trained and my little genius was telling me! I was thrilled. Leo had been pretty easy to train. He pooped like 5 times a day, and he loved it! He would line up his little cars along the toilet seat and talk to himself and play while he did his duty. It took a little while for the peeing (including frequent stops along the highway where he just couldn't hold it until the next stop) but he was pretty well trained quickly. Everyone kept telling me how girls were SO much easier to train than boys, so I thought, well great! Carmela will pretty much just train herself then. Haha - I now laugh at my then naive self. But she was giving the sign, so I said OK! I went out that day and bought the essential supplies. Kitchen timer so I could set it to 30 minute increments as a reminder to go, check. Sealed container of M&Ms as a treat each time she went, check. Cute girly little potty throne that played music every time she tinkled, double check!! Okay, let's do this! I needed to go to the store later in the week and thought, hmm, well I'll give it a few days and by then she'll hopefully be ready to go out and about in her new Dora underwear. My optimism was seriously adorable.

Okay, now fast forward 8 months and let's see where we are at. A pile of pee-soaked underwear and pants in the laundry room, Carmela running around naked because all pairs of said underwear are soaked, and me about to pull my hair out. And that adorable seat? Turned out to be the most ridiculous purchase I've made. That thing got cleaned and thrown in the basement about 2 months in. Turns out that as soon as she peed in it and heard the little jingle, she would jump up in excitement thus peeing all over herself and the bathroom floor. And not only that, whenever she actually would go to the bathroom in it, she was so proud she wouldn't let me help to dump it in the toilet. An excited 2 year old's uncoordinated hands flinging around a plastic bowl full of poop - how did I possibly think that was a helpful purchase?! Also, those diapers and wipes I could just stash in my little purse and be on our way? Now I have a much larger purse chock-full of underwear, wipes, and as many pairs of pants and socks that I can fit in there "just in case". Grrrr. So here are the bribes, er I mean things we have tried: M&Ms as treats when she went (worked for approx. 1 week and then the novelty wore off), a sticker chart (worked for approx. 2 weeks until she decided she didn't like stickers anymore), gobs of gratuitous praise every single time she went (worked, but didn't give her reason enough to do it). So, I pulled out the big guns. I spent $20 and bought a large package of Squinkie toys - tiny little rubber figures that come in individually packed plastic balls. They went into a container and every time she told me she had to go to the bathroom and actually did, she got to pick one out. This actually did really work - better than anything else - but I ended it after having these little figurines invading every space of our home and car. But the bribery from them got us pretty far along in the process.

At this point now, a few months away from 3, we are **almost** there. She will go days without an accident, but then all of sudden have several in a row, so I am not quite sure what that is about. I assume at some point I can stop harassing her every 15 minutes asking her if she has to go, is she sure, is she really really sure? It eventually has to work, right? At this age Leo was well trained. It actually still blows my mind that he knows when he has to go and does his business on his own. Like a little man, so independent! I imagine for Carmela that I might just have to buy like 3 dresses for her High School Prom, just in case she pees through the first 2. And maybe her date will respond to her accidents the same way I do " Carmelllaaaaaaa... AGAIN??!! SERIOUSLY???".

Becoming a mom...

So there it is. Me in all of my 12-hours-of-drug-free-labor-and-then-a-c-section glory! The day - the moment - the whirlwind of a transformation that turned me from Kristen (me myself and I), into Mom, mommy and mama. And that little person there responsible for said transformation? Well, he is turning 5 this year! And close behind is my daughter who will be turning 3. Where has the time gone? Way back when while I was waddling around and painting a perfectly blue nursery I would have never in a million years been able to foresee the change about to occur in my life. I clearly remember sitting in the middle of his room folding his teeny tiny clothes trying with all of my might to imagine what it would be like to have an itty-bitty baby there sitting beside me. It was impossible! I also remember driving home from the hospital with him sleeping in the backseat in his carrier thinking "What in the world have we gotten ourselves into??". Quick glances followed by nervous smiles were exchanged. I suddenly seemed to have let basic biology slip from my already sleep-deprived brain as I wondered how on Earth this baby came to be and why was he in our backseat? Certainly WE couldn't have produced this sleeping/crying/pooping machine!!

There is such an incredible change that takes place once you have that little bundle in your arms. The others (i.e. friends who have not yet gone on this journey - also referred to as the "free ones") have NO clue what you are going through. They couldn't possibly. Late night phone calls reminded me of this on a weekly basis. "Hey, why don't you come out and meet us for dinner tonight?" "Oh yeah, there is a party this weekend - Saturday night!!" "Yeah, that would be SO awesome to get to stay home all day and play with a baby!!". Yes, indeed, they do not understand. What they can't possibly know is that as a new mom your brain goes into survival mode and you no longer notice the social happenings around you. Instead, you begin to focus your energy (what little of it remains) on the important things in life. Like trying to remember if you washed your hair or not in the shower (that is assuming you were able to fit in a shower during the day). Or picking up the phone and attempting to get through a conversation without the uncontrollable screaming that inevitably breaks out as soon as you dial. Or, my favorite, savoring the rare moments where you can get several hours of uninterrupted sleep - in a row! (on a side-note, if you think that the sleepless nights of caring for a newborn are going to be the same as the sleepless nights during college when you could stay up all night partying and still make it to a 7:45 am lecture feeling good-to-go - you will be sadly mistaken. This I learned quite quickly!). Also, as a new mom it is very easy to feel alone. All of a sudden your normal group of friends start slipping off the radar and you are left with a baby who can't talk and an episode of Sesame Street to keep you company. I do not believe I am alone when I say the transformation at first can be a bit depressing, if only due to the lack of contact with other adults. I was talking to a friend recently who just had her first baby and is on maternity leave. She said she sounded awful for saying it, but she was not enjoying being home all day. All she could do was watch the seconds tick away on the clock waiting for her husband to get home. I get it for sure! I remember those days quite clearly. When Leo was an infant I would take him to the grocery store literally almost every day just to have something to do to pass our time! And I still have days like that where I watch the clock in anticipation for Brandon to walk through the door. I still sometimes feel alone and feel like I have nobody who could understand what I am going through. But, as I tried to explain to my friend, those moments are fleeting and before you know it you will have more of a little companion and less of a crying helpless baby by your side. And you will miss the sleepless nights because with those middle-of-the-night feedings come seriously precious cuddling time that goes by oh so fast.

It can be easy to sometimes wish to be given, if only for a day, time from B.B. ("Before Baby") where all you had to worry about was yourself. It seems a distant memory the times when I could come home from work and do nothing... or do something... it didn't matter what I did! Run off to the store with nothing but a wallet in my hand. Take an impromptu vacation. Eat cereal for dinner because I just didn't feel like cooking. I sometimes catch myself having slight twinges of jealousy as I see some of my friends jet-set around the world on amazingly romantic vacations or go out late at night for drinks not having to worry about what time the kids will be up the next morning. But the fact is that no matter how difficult it is in the beginning to adjust, there are so many crazy amazing mom-moments that the "free ones" don't get to partake in just yet. For every decorative piece of art or vase I've had to commit to the basement for the sake of child-proofing, I get priceless handprints and finger-painted masterpieces. For every hour of sleep I've missed out on, I get days at the park or the pool that I never want to end because I get to witness the pure and utter joy of kids just being kids. And for every intimate moment I am missing with Brandon because of these little additions, I get smothered with hugs and kisses daily from the most loving and innocent people I can imagine. The trade-offs cannot even nearly compare to the life I was living before my babies came into my life. Hearing a little person say "I love you Mommy" - it has the power to literally melt your heart into a puddle of tears. Trade all of that to be "free"?? Not a chance in the world!