The Lazy Mom's Guide to Parenting: Installment #1 - Don't Bother Potty Training

So, potty training is a hot topic among moms.  Lots of angst and debate about the best method, the best age, etc. etc.  My take on it?

No, really - if it's difficult, a struggle, a challenge, you're stressing out, participating in online brawls or the recipient of a facebook smack down about potty training...it's not worth your time.  Because guess what? Developmentally typical children all learn how to use the toilet eventually.  When/if your kids go to college, I promise that you won't be able to tell the difference between the kids who potty trained at 18 months and the ones who potty trained at 2, or 3, or heaven forbid even 4.  Now, the EC kids may have an academic advantage.  I'm not sure - I only know one and she's crazy smart but it's hard to say if that's good genes or has something to do with her potty training method.  I'd need a bigger sample size, and lets face it....(see above picture).

Furthermore, potty training is just downright inconvenient.  I mean, even when they decide they want to use the toilet, let's be honest - it causes complications.  There are accidents, in public and at home.  No matter where you are or what you're doing, when they say they have to go you have to drop everything and find a bathroom (or tree (ha ha)) stat! There are events where you have no option but to take you're little kid into a gross port-a-potty and keep them from falling in and you long for the diaper days.  And so forth.  Obviously we do these things and manage these things for our kids as needed - that's our job. But as far as I'm concerned there is no need to rush or force your way into this particularly inconvenient phase.  And the earlier you decide potty training is the number one goal in life, the longer this phase usually lasts.

"But wait!", you tell me.  "I tried this method and it worked!  It could work for everyone!"  Here's the thing.  All toddlers are different.  Snowflakes and all that.  I try not to use my Mother-of-8 status to be a know-it-all, because let's face it-  A) That's obnoxious as hell, and B) I'm barely passable at this mothering thing.  But one thing I will declare with all the force of my credentials behind it is that there is no One Method (of pretty much anything) that works for all kids.  There just isn't.  While there are a bazillion different little quirks and idiosyncrasies I will outline below three common toddler types:

1)  The Insufferenabler

Don't be fooled by the name.  These toddlers are delightful!  Every one deserves at least one....for the sake of your friends and the internet at large, let's hope it's your second or third, but regardless, I genuinely hope everyone gets one of these.  These children think that every idea their mother has is pretty much the most brilliant thing they've ever heard!  They are eager to please, every new food is their favorite, they love to sleep, and when mom says, "Let's try something new," they say (perhaps in not so many words), "Nothing would please me more, mama!"  Some may take slightly more effort than that.  They may at first resist, but when mama pulls out the "methods" and the "tried and true tricks" they fall right in line.  Some signs that you might have an Insufferenabler are if you find your self saying or posting things like, "Oh really? I've found that if you just do this it solves all the problems."; "Doing x from birth has really helped establish a relationship of trust from the beginning and paved the way for success in y."; "All toddlers can be potty trained (sleep trained, food trained, wearing-pants-trained, etc.) you just have to follow this plan."; "If you don't teach them to do x now (which was incredibly easy for me to do) you will set them up for so.much.failure. in life."

2) The Conspiracy Theorist

These toddlers do not trust you.  They are convinced that everything you try to do is a secret plot to kill them, or at a minimum cause them extreme suffering.  They can be found to be giving you the side eye on a regular basis.  That look that says, "Wait, that thing you did yesterday that I loved...you're trying it again today?  What's going on here...what kind of fool do you think I am??  I'm on to you woman!!"  Should you try to press the issue in any way - gently, sternly, coaxingly, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, whatever - they will immediately go into preemptive death throes just to demonstrate how dire the situation is and what could happen if you proceed.  When you try new things you are ruining their life.

3) The Doofus

These are the toddlers who happily go about living their (exceptionally irrational and often destructive) lives with no care one way or another for your opinions.  Give them a potty chair and they'll be psyched they just got a new hat and a stool.  Show them a toilet, and they've now got an indoor pool!  These children may be pleasant (when they are not destroying all the things) and seem compliant while actually having no intention of doing (or quite possibly, simply have no idea) what you want them to do.

Now, in my personal experience, Types 2 and 3 are a little more common in toddlers than Type 1.  It's just that the mommy's of Insufferenablers happen to be a little more vocal than the rest. So, if you're a wreck because you just dropped $27 on an ebook and locked yourself in house with a feral toddler on a sugar high for three days with nothing more to show for it than some new carpet stains and concerned neighbors, take it easy on yourself and take comfort in the fact that there are so so many type 2 and 3 moms NOT speaking up.  And besides, now you know that there is some random mom of 8 on the internet who has 7 kids (so far, maybe #8 will blow my stats) who all started using the toilet with little to no training and teaching.  It's just one of those things that they do - some sooner, some later, but they all do it eventually.

If you want to potty train and have a Type 1, absolutely go for it.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with it and I'm truly happy for you. If for some reason it's really important to you to potty train, even if it's a struggle, I fully support you.  We mom's all have our own personalities too, and if it's better for your sanity while not crossing the line of being damaging to theirs - do what you've got to do and I wish you well.  But if you find that nothing is working and you're obsessing and stressing about it all the time, and everyone's sanity is deteriorating - I strongly recommend pulling back.

So what DO I do?  I casually make them aware that there is a toilet or a potty chair available for such purposes.  When they follow me into the bathroom, as of course they all do, I make mention of what I'm doing and tell them, "When you're a big kid, you'll get to use the toilet too!  If you ever want to try it let me know!"  At some point when I get the inkling that they might be close to being ready I buy a bag of treats (we like Hershey Kisses). I let them see it but don't make a huge deal over it and very casually mention that whenever they start using the toilet (I use more specific terms than that, but really, I don't enjoy potty-talk with adults, so I'll refrain on my blog) they'll get one, and then I put them away in an inaccessible place.  I don't bring it up all the time because  for some toddlers (particularly Conspiracy Theorists and those just not ready) this can cause stress.  Then, one day when they decide to give it a try and succeed I give them a chocolate and congratulate them and let them know that I will give them a chocolate every time.  They may do it a few times and then quit for weeks or months.  No big deal.  No need to stress.  They'll get back to it and at some point they'll be out of diapers for good.

And there you have my "tried and true method" of (not really) potty training.  Feel free to send me 27 bucks.

Home-Surgery: How Not To

Trigger warning:  If you are traumatized by moles, cutting off body parts or botched home surgery, you might want to skip this post.

Many years ago, when we only had two or three children I noticed a mole on my husband's back that concerned me.  I don't recall if google was the big in thing yet or not, but somehow the internet let me know that I should keep an eye on Josh's moles, and which ones to worry about.  We had pretty good insurance at the time, so off we went to the doctor to check it out.  The doctor agreed that this particular mole (let's call him Fred) might be problematic, so he did the in-office procedure to cut it out.  And Fred was no more.

The doctor also gave me some helpful tips for judging moles, and he told us that skin tags and moles just hanging on by a little bit of skin, regardless of size could easily just be snipped off at home.  "Wonderful!", we thought.  We have babies at home, surely we could remove moles at home.  How hard could it be?

A few weeks later Josh decided that a mole on his leg (let's call this one George) was irritating him.  George was a pretty big guy with multiple heads, but met the criteria of just hanging on by a little bit of skin.  We sanitized the area and had to choose our tools.  Now this is where we started to go wrong.  In the thinking process, you could say that "mistakes were made".  I almost don't want to tell you, but the blog does say, "Qualmless"...

We chose...a cigar cutter.  Yes, that's right, we chose a cigar cutter, gosh darned it.  One of these things:

If you don't know how this works, you put your thumb in one of those nifty finger holds and one or two other fingers in the other finger hold and you can pull those blades in the middle open to make a hole in the middle.  You stick the end of your cigar in the in the hole and squeeze it shut and snip off the tip.  You'd think the blades would have to be nice and sharp to cut through a big thick cigar.  You'd think something that could cut the tip of a cigar off would slice seamlessly through flesh.  What's that?  No, you wouldn't think that?  Okay, well we thought that.

So, like I said, we sanitized the area around George and we used fire on the blades to sanitize them.  I carefully fitted George into the opening and quickly squeezed the blades together.  George would not be so easily taken.  The blades closed, yes.  But George folded over on himself, caught in the blades like flesh caught between teeth.  Like, say, if you bit a giant mole with out severing the skin and then had it caught in your teeth.  Just like that.  (Have I gone too far?)

So there we were, with a cigar cutter full of mole, blood dribbling out, Josh grimacing (he hates it when I say that he grimaced, but he did).  "Should I open it??", I ask.  Josh says, "NO!  Get something to cut it off!"  Okay then!  I happened to have a pair of these spring loaded sewing scissors near by:

With George firmly still attached to both Josh and the cigar cutter, I pulled the cigar cutter up away from Josh's leg and snipped the little bit of skin left in between.  And George was no more.  (Well, after we pried him out of the cigar cutter and threw him away that is.)

So, in case you are considering this home-surgery for yourself, I made up this handy graphic to help you remember which tools you should and should not use:

Hope this helps.

Conflict Resolution with a Baby

My 9 month old and I had a serious talk last night.  I think we worked some of our issues out.

Me:  Dearest Anastasia, did you know that when I was pregnant with you I prayed for a baby who would love to snuggle and liked to be held and wanted to nurse and wanted to sleep with me?

Anastasia:  I did know that!  It's all I've ever wanted is to give you that mommy!  That's one of the reasons I stayed inside for so long.  It's what we both wanted.  I didn't really understand why you made me come out, but I forgive you.

Me: Well thank you sweet baby.  You were getting too big for my insides and I wanted to hold you in my arms and nuzzle your head and kiss your cheeks.

Anastasia:  That makes sense.  I like that too.  You can hold me all the time if you'd like.  I like exploring now too though, is that okay?  As long as I'm not alone and can see and hear at least two family members at all times I like to get down and move around.

Me:  Of course you can!  I think it's great!  But back to that bit about how much I wanted a baby who would want to snuggle and sleep with me -

Anastasia:  Yup, I've got that covered, no problem.

Me:  Yes, well, I forgot to mention one tiny little thing about that...for some reason I have a really hard time falling asleep for the first time in a night while nursing and snuggling.  Is there any possible way that we could work it out that you go to bed in your crib and wait for me to fall asleep and then you wake up and I'll bring you into bed with me.  I can fall right back to sleep when we do it that way.

Anastasia:  Seriously?  That's an awfully specific and needy sleep plan.  Is that why you keep trying to trick me into sleeping in my crib alone at night?  Look, I hate being in my crib at night.  I hate being alone.  Besides being alone was never the plan for either of us.

Me: You know, you take a really good nap in your crib during the day.  What makes night time so different?

Anastasia:  During the day it doesn't feel like being alone.  All the other kids are still yelling and screaming and the whole house is vibrating.  Nighttime is silent.  At night it's distinctly possible that you all moved out and forgot me.  It's creepy and quiet and lonely.

Me:  It's not totally quiet!  What about the Lorena McKennitt album that we have playing next to your crib (and have been playing 24/7 for over 2 years now)?

Anastasia:  Is that why that's going all the time?  Look, she has a lovely and soothing voice - which is kind of the problem.  She doesn't sound anything like any single member of my family.  If the house is quiet enough for me to hear the music I've clearly been abandoned.

Me: Well, Isabella liked it.  It helped her sleep.

Anastasia:  *guffaw*  Helped her sleep?  From what I've heard, she didn't need help.  And she would have slept just as well with Tool or Nine Inch Nails.

Me:  Yeah, I guess you're right.  But, don't you think maybe we could compromise on this bed time thing?

Anastasia:  Look, if I wait until you're asleep to come in bed with you you won't even really be able to appreciate our snuggle time.  I think it would be in both of our best interests if you just accept having me come into bed with you at the beginning.  Do you enjoy trying to lay me down over and over again every night for hours past when you were planning on going to bed only to have me wake up within minutes?

Me: No, I really don't.

Anastasia: Me either.  I'm glad we talked, I think bedtime will start going better for both of us from here on out.

Me:  Okay...well could we at least compromise about using my face as a pillow?

Anastasia:  No.  That's where the real snuggling happens.

She's lucky she's cute.