Category Archive

When a mother of young children complains about how hard it is taking care of babies and toddlers, some mother of teenagers will invariably pipe up and say that it doesn’t get any easier as the kids get older.  In fact, it gets harder.  From what I’ve heard, raising teenagers is the innermost circle of the parenting inferno.  You are Judas, Cassius and Brutus, and they are three-headed Satan, gnawing on your noggin(s) for (what seems like) eternity.  As the years go by and my kids get older and new and different parenting challenges arise, the more I think that parents of teenagers are people who just haven’t changed enough diapers lately.

Now, believe me, when I think about what my teenage self put my parents through, I shudder–and I was an angel compared to most of the kids I knew.  When I reflect on what a narcissistic, moody, immature whiner I was, I marvel that my parents didn’t slap me silly every day of my life.  I’m convinced that the main thing I had going for me during those years was the fact that I was finally toilet-trained.  And as far as I’m concerned, when my own kids are teenagers, I don’t care what they do–back-talking, skipping school, breaking curfew, vandalism, piercing stuff, hanging out in back of the 7-Eleven and smoking the cigarettes they rolled themselves–so long as they’re not still pooping in their pants, I’m good.  Heck, they can even get pregnant and expect me to take care of their babies while they take classes at the community college because babies are supposed to poop their pants.  As long as they are doing their business in the toilet like people over the age of five are supposed to do, they will be keeping up their end of the bargain.

Those of you who have teenagers are probably shaking your heads at the computer screen and muttering, “This girl has no idea what she’s saying.  If only it was as easy as changing a diaper.  I’d change a thousand diapers every day if it meant that I didn’t have to stay up nights wondering if little Susie is dead in a ditch somewhere.  Mark my words, in about five years or so, she’ll be begging to change diapers again.”

Well, mark my words, know-it-alls, in five years I will probably STILL be changing diapers, and I’ll be begging for someone to leave ME in a ditch somewhere.  Methinks you have not spent a good 35 minutes scraping fecal matter out of a seven-year-old’s 28 pairs of underpants lately, so maybe you can go soak your heads.  Yeah, I’m surly, like your teenager, and if one more person tells me that I should be grateful for the opportunity to change two sets of diapers and launder a third set of underpants being used as diapers, I’m going to pierce my eyebrow and run up their cell phone bill–yeah, their cell phone bill:  with text messages like “BYT ME.”

Princess Zurg, God bless her, has always been a handful, and her problems get more complicated and worrisome as she gets older.  But I have never–NEVER, a thousand times NEVER–waxed nostalgic for the days when she was taking dumps in her pants instead of physically assaulting people.  Is parenting her easier now than it was then?  No, I guess not.  I guess it’s harder.  But I haven’t had to think about Princess Zurg’s bodily waste for about six years now, and you know what?  That’s awesome.  That’s what saves her life some days, let me tell you.  I have NEVER stopped being grateful for PZ’s ability and willingness to use the toilet for its intended purpose.  It took her four-and-a-half years to master the skill, but as of now she’s my toileting prodigy and you bet your sweet bippy I’m proud of her.  I might just go out and get her a freaking medal today.  That’s the kind of mood I’m in.

It might be different if my kids pooped once or twice a day.  I think I could handle that…psychologically.  It’s this all day, every day, pooping-every-time-I-turn-my-back business that makes it so…heart-breaking.  Did I say “heart-breaking”?  I meant “soul-crushing.”  Some of you might be thinking now that my children must have medical issues, and I should talk to their pediatricians.  DO NOT MAKE ME LAUGH.  I’ve been to the doctor.  I’ve been to doctors.  No one cares about my problems.  All the doctors I know are parents of people with normally-functioning digestive systems–or of teenagers who don’t talk to their folks about digestion anymore.  Parents of people not under an illusion that there’s something charming about a life steeped in doo-doo.

These are the same people who told me not to push toileting on kids who were resistant.  That it had to be their decision.  That’s what all the toileting experts say, and it seems intuitive–you can’t control another person’s sphincters, can you?  Well, can you?  These good people would make it all seem so simple.  Just have your child sit on the potty for a set amount of time every day.  At certain times of the day.  Once an hour, every twenty minutes, whatever.  Have them sit on the potty, but never force them to sit on the potty against their will.  I confess I do not understand how this is accomplished.  How do you “have” a child sit on the potty without “forcing” them to sit on the potty?  Why would you need to “have” a child sit on a potty if there weren’t a conflict of wills at issue?  What exactly do they mean by “have”?  Do they mean “ask”?  Do they mean “tell”?  And what if the child says, “No”?  What if he says, “Hell, no”?  Do you put him in time-out?  On the potty?  Without forcing him?  My head is spinning.

I rue the day I bought into the notion that you shouldn’t have power struggles over the potty.  If I had the proper restraints, three of my four children would be chained to our three toilets right now.  I have had it with protecting their delicate self-esteem(s).  I have had it with love and patience.  I’m tired of my hands smelling like poop all the time.

Riding home in a squad car at 3 a.m.?  Bring it on, people.  I’m ready for the next stage of life.  I’m ready.

For the last several weeks I’ve been trying to make this social story for Elvis about using the potty.  Part of the trouble has been images.  Photographs are more concrete than drawings, but there are some things that just shouldn’t be photographed.  So when it came time to do the pages about sitting down on the toilet vs. standing up, I thought I would have to settle for drawings.

My own artistic skills are somewhat limited, though I’m not too proud to put my lack of talent on display for the sake of my children’s education.  However, the best–or least offensive–drawings I could make of sitting on a toilet involved rudimentary stick figures, and I wasn’t sure if Elvis would “get” them or not.  I preferred to have a better drawing.  So I did something that I knew I should not do.  You know where this is going, don’t you? 

Right now you’re thinking, “No, girl, you did not–you did NOT look for toilet pictures on Google Images!”  Look, I said I wasn’t proud.  I knew it wouldn’t be pretty, but I was desperate.  I tried to play it safe.  I tried to find links via autism sites; they were all broken.  I used my inferior Googling skills to try to find the sites the original links were supposed to be linking to.  I Googled “toilet training” instead of just “toilet.”  I did not Google “sitting on the toilet.”  Okay?  I’m not that stupid.  I am only a little bit stupid.  Well, even under “toilet training” there were images I did not care to see.  Gentle reader, you would not believe what pictures people will post of their own kids online.  No, not those kinds of pictures.  But still–nothing you want on your Facebook page when you’re trying to get a job, you know what I’m saying?.  ::shudder::  Learn from my mistakes.  Do not go there.

So after all this suffering, did I even get what I had come for?  No.  So I thought, very well, I will use my rudimentary stick figures.  At least they aren’t DISGUSTING.  Well, to me they’re not.  I couldn’t really say what Elvis would think.  And that’s when I remembered (later than I would have liked, but fortunately not too late) that I own a digital camera and the Fisher Price Loving Family dollhouse–fully furnished!

Here is where you’ll probably want to stop reading.  Heck, you probably should have never come here in the first place.  If you’re still here, maybe you get what you deserve.  But I feel obligated to post the following photographs as a service to any other desperate parents out there who might be Googling “non-disgusting toilet training pictures that won’t get me arrested if the cops ever search my computer.”

I had a little trouble at first with my model.  He’s not the easiest to work with.

See, that just doesn’t look comfortable, does it?

Fortunately, his knees bend.

See, that’s more genteel, isn’t it?  And an equally discreet image of the Greatest Joy of Manhood (according to my husband):

And because my children have a particular problem with pooping while standing:

Yes, I realize that the doll’s pants are still on in all these pictures.  I’M NOT A SICKO, OKAY?  That’s the whole rationale behind this exercise.

Anyway, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t stop giggling this afternoon.  Because I’ve lost my mind, Gentle Reader.  I have lost my freaking mind.

1.  She knows when her diaper is soiled and requests to have it changed.

2.  She starts imitating adult grooming behavior, e.g. applies deodorant to her stomach.

3.  She insists on wearing her brother’s Thomas the Tank Engine underpants, despite the fact that they’re two sizes too big for her.

4.  She will not wear just any diaper, but only diapers with Winnie the Pooh on them.  And not just any old diaper with Winnie the Pooh on it.  It must be the diaper with Winnie the Pooh hanging from a red balloon, with Tigger riding a tire swing on the back.  The diaper with Eeyore on it is so last week.

Oh, honey.  I just don’t think so.

The other day I was reading in the Oregonian about these sisters who were getting tested for the ovarian cancer gene.  Or something like that.  I don’t understand how this gene testing stuff works, or what they test you for, and I don’t really care.  I have no interest in testing for cancer genes.  The kind of genetic counseling that would have been useful for me is testing kids for that Craps-in-His-Pants-and-Couldn’t-Care-Less gene. 

Seriously, who wants to sit in his or her own filth for hours on end, no pun intended?  Answer:  My children.  My children do.  They hate to have their diapers changed.  They just scream and run away from me.  I have to hunt them down and sit on them for the privilege of changing their diapers, and yeah, I resent it a little bit.  I have one who’s out of diapers who still disdains using the toilet for the waste-elimination job that Really Counts.  Why would a person prefer soiling himself to spending a couple minutes on a harmless commode that has never–no, not once–ever swallowed a single human child?  Why?  Why? 

I’ve blocked out a lot of my childhood memories, but I’m pretty sure that if I’d had a thing for pooping in my drawers and acting like it was no big deal, I would have no shortage of family members reminding me of this former quirk every chance they got.  And I guess if this had been a trait on my husband’s side, my mother-in-law would have told me by now.  Or maybe not, I don’t know.  Maybe she’s afraid that if I found out she was withholding such information until it was too late and I’d already reproduced with her son (four times!), I would not forgive her.  It’s possible.  If I could go back in time five and a half years and tell my past self that the recalcitrant Princess Zurg would be my easiest child to toilet-train, I probably would have socked me in the face and huddled in a closet somewhere, sobbing uncontrollably and maybe tearing out my hair.  I’d be in a mental institution now, and my youngest two children would have never been born.  So I guess it’s all for the best that my MIL keeps some things to herself and time travel is not yet a reality.

It seems like someone has always got constipation or diarrhea.  You would think all I ever fed them around here was white bread and tainted Mexican food.  Before you tell me to talk to my pediatrician, let me assure you that the only advice I’ve gotten from multiple pediatricians is, “Wow.  Sucks to be you.”  Which is not really advice, but that’s still all I got. 

My youngest hasn’t had a proper bowel movement in at least a week.  I can’t give her the Miralax that her doctor prescribed because the only fluid she’ll drink anymore, since I decided to wean her, is breast milk, and it’s not like I can dump a capful of Miralax down my gullet and have it come out through my breasts in a therapeutic dosage.  At least I don’t think I should try that.  My children have exceptionally high tolerances for fiber.  I could feed them oatmeal laced with wheat germ and flaxseed three times a day, and they would still be irregular.  Not that I would dare feed them such a concoction because I never know when they’re going to turn around and get viral dysentery on me.  That did not come out right.  Never mind!

Topping off the list of Bowel Habits Not Conducive To Toilet-Learning is the fact that they all prefer to do their business standing up.  Which is fine when it’s the other business and they’re a boy, but standing is really incompatible with Western-industrialized hygienic defecation models.  You know what I’m saying? 

Okay, I’m done now.  Hope you all weren’t eating lunch or anything.

I suspect my Elvis has been using my toothbrush for the last week or so.  He has a perfectly good toothbrush of his own.  It has Thomas the Tank Engine on it.  It even plays music.  (”They’re two, they’re four, they’re six, they’re eight–shunting trucks and hauling freight.”)  But apparently Thomas the Tank Engine has nothing on a pink brush with full-size bristles.  Not as far as my boy is concerned.

In related news, I’ve noticed that my baby does not like to eat cereal.  She only likes to eat my cereal while she’s sitting on my lap.  In point of fact, she does not like for me to enjoy my cereal by myself.  It must be a shared experience. 

What is the point of this commentary?  Well, we all three have this cold/cough thing that we can’t seem to shake.  I wonder what that’s all about.

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Speaking of Elvis and the shared experience, his occupational and speech therapists are working on a social story for him about using the potty.  It’s pretty simple:  “I can use the potty.  I like to use the potty at Safeway.  I can use the potty at home, too.  Mom and Dad are happy when I use the potty.”  No heavy indoctrination.  Just good old-fashioned emotional blackmail in a clinical setting.  Anyway, to make the story more concrete for him, they’ve asked me to take some pictures of our bathrooms, the toilets, the house, etc.  They also said it would be nice if I got a picture of the Safeway potty.  At first I chuckled and thought, heck, why not, I have no pride.  But now I’m thinking…no.  Not really a place I want to go, taking cameras into supermarkets to get images of the bathrooms.  Like, here’s the line and you just crossed it.  No.  I think we’ll have to keep the Safeway potty “more abstract” for the time being.

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It would appear that we will soon be enrolling our oldest daughter in the School for Incorrigible Girls.  Actually, it’s more of a School for Incorrigible Kids, as there are probably more boys there than the other, but School for Incorrigible Girls sounds better.  More Roald Dahlish.  Also, maybe like the name of a USA Up All Night Movie.  But we won’t go there.Anyway, yes, we have an appointment this afternoon to meet with the relevant mucky-mucks of this “clinical program in an educational setting,” or however it’s referred to, and check out their facility.  Stroll around the grounds until we feel at home, as it were.  I’m going in with an open mind.  That’s all I can say.  If you don’t hear from me again, it’s because the men in white coats took my open mind and ran with it.  (Look, I’m the one putting my kid in a funny farm.  I think you can afford me a little levity.)I’ve been thinking lately about when Princess Zurg was first diagnosed, how her preschool teacher had said of course PZ could be mainstreamed, no problem; how the autism specialist who did her evaluation said PZ was going to be just fine because she had good skills and good parents.  I’m not bitter or anything.  I’m just feeling the irony.  Irony isn’t a bad thing.  Sometimes you just have to sit back and appreciate it.

I want to say, in all seriousness, thank you for all of your support and concern vis a vis the Princess Zurg Issue.  I don’t mean to jerk you around with dead skunk posts.  Gentle readers, you are my friends.  Your patience and good karma mean a lot to me.

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As long as I’m talking about folks who are related to me, I want to tell you that my sister–my actual sister, whom I know in real life–is blogging on WordPress, and you should go visit her.  If you like my blog, you will probably enjoy hers.  Not as much as you like mine, of course, because that would hurt my feelings–but you can just keep those inconvenient details to yourself, should they arise. 

I’ve decided that 2008 is going to be the Year of the Potty.  Elvis is going to be five in April, and I would like him to be using the toilet before then.  Dare I dream?  I do.  What’s more, I think where Elvis goes, Girlfriend will follow.  She’s only two, and that would make her a prodigy in our family–heck, in our family you’re a prodigy if you’re trained before age four–but she idolizes her big brother, and if he uses the potty, what options does she really have?  (Don’t answer that.)

The trick is making him think it’s his idea.  Historically I have not been good at tricking my children.  They’re pretty smart.  That’s the challenge of parenting, being smarter than the children.  I can’t win on stubborn, so I have to use my wits.  Think, Madhousewife.  Think think think.

Nothing’s coming.

We own a potty-training video–I Can Go Potty!–which my children have always enjoyed, but nevertheless have not found inspiring.  I’ve been thinking of replacing it with a video or book starring a beloved children’s show character–if I could only find one starring a character that my children are familiar with.  People rave about Bear in the Big Blue House’s (or is it Big Blue Bear in the House?) potty video, but my kids wouldn’t know that bear from Adam.  Does it make a difference?  Is Bear in the Big Blue House charismatic enough that my children could fall in love with him (and by extension, the toilet) at first sight?  Various Sesame Street characters have starred in potty-training books.  My kids know some of the Sesame Street characters, but I wouldn’t bet on them finding Ernie or Elmo compelling in that particular role. 

Actually, the characters that the youngest two are most endeared to are Barney and Thomas the Tank Engine.  I heard that Barney had a potty video, but I haven’t been able to locate it on the interwebs.  (I have found YouTube videos of “Barney taking a dump.”  I don’t know if that would be as effective or not…but there are still some places I’m not ready to go.)  I’m thinking that Thomas the Tank Engine and his engine friends do not use the potty.  You know, what with them being trains and all.  Sir Topham Hatt is theoretically capable of using the potty, but such behavior seems somewhat out of character for him.  And there are no Thomas the Tank Engine potty videos, so I need to just get off this track.  Ha ha, get it?  Track?  Never mind.

There is a Thomas the Tank Engine potty seat on Amazon.com, but it’s the First Years brand, and I’ve owned two First Years potty seats and really don’t care for them.  (I think we lost both in the fire.)  And I’d rather not pay $23.99 for something I don’t care for, especially since it’s just a Thomas sticker on the back of a regular First Years potty chair.  If it were a potty shaped like a train, that would be different.  Which makes me wonder, why hasn’t anyone made a potty shaped like a train?  They could pee in the boiler and poop in the tender.  It is really just wrong for me to talk about this.  Do you know that in the house I grew up in, nobody even used words like “pee” and “poop”?  I have no recollection of how we referred to those activities.  We all learned to use the toilet, so we must have talked about it at some point, but my mother had a strong gag reflex, and it just wasn’t kosher to discuss bodily functions in many venues.  Certainly not at the dinner table, which is where my husband and children like to discuss bodily functions.  My children are very, very fond of talking about toilets and toilet activities.  They think it’s hysterical.  I keep telling them they should be doers of the word and not hearers only, but they don’t like when I push my religion on them. 

So I was looking online for other, non-First Years potty chairs, and it’s a somewhat daunting task.  There are approximately 400 to choose from–including this “fancy potty chair” by Little Colorado.  It’s made of resilient Baltic Birch and has armrests and a built-in bookrack and toilet paper holder.  It can be mine for $70.99, plus $9.99 shipping and handling.  I think my first couch cost less than that.

There’s also a musical potty chair (Ababy, $64.95), a hand-painted “western” potty chair (Ababy, $68.95), and a toddler urinal (Visionaire, $39.19).  The urinal is a nice concept, but I have to tell you, it does not look stable to me.  I value stability in something that is supposed to collect my child’s urine.  That’s all I’m saying.  Evenflo makes this so-called “magic potty” ($41.88).  I’m not sure how to describe it.  It looks like it’s supposed to be some space-themed…”hover”-potty.  I dunno.  That doesn’t look so stable, either.  And when someone uses the word “magic” and “potty” in the same breath, I expect to be paying more than $41.88, or probably I am getting ripped off. 

On the more economical side of things, there’s the PRIMO Bunny potty ($9.99).  It’s a bright yellow bunny that looks kind of like a riding toy (handlebars yes, wheels no), and the bunny is sticking out his bright red tongue.  Huh.  I don’t get it.  If I wanted to be (extra-)narcissistic in a really weird way, I could go with the “Buddy Giraffe” toilet decoration (Jeckida Inc., $13.99), but just looking at it makes me a little upset.

Then there’s the Teamson “lighthouse” potty ($59.95).  What, for my great-aunt who collects them?  I wasn’t aware that lighthouses were a great motivator for the under-three set.

Which brings up another point.  Technically, Elvis’s nearly-five-year-old bum is big enough to use the actual potty–and really too big to use most potty chairs, which seem to be designed for infants under twelve months.  Go figure.  (Did the potty-chair industry not get the memo on childhood obesity?  They really need to step it up!)  But big kids can be afraid of the big potty, too.  So where’s my school-age Thomas the Tank Engine potty chair shaped like a train?  Must I really do everything myself?

In other news, Elvis has lately grown very fond of fire hydrants.  We have a lot of fire hydrants in our city.  I know, because every time we pass one, he says, “Hydrant!  It’s yellow!”  There’s a potty-chair idea here that I’m not fully comfortable exploring at this time, but perhaps at a later date.  Elvis has also taken to dressing up in his father’s clothes–which is better than him dressing in my clothes, I guess.  If only he would strive to emulate his father in other areas.  Toilet use, for example.  His father loves using the toilet.  Why did none of those genes pass along?  I’m just wondering.

On that note, I think I will go make lunch.

When I was in college, I went to church with a woman who was a published author.  (Two books!)  She had seven children, ranging in age from pre-school to high school.  Orson Scott Card published her first book, and in the introduction he remembers asking her how she found time to write with seven kids.  "I don't," she said.  "I neglect my children." 

Back then, I thought she was kidding.  Now that I have children of my own and no writing career to speak of, I realize that she was telling the truth.  It only sounded funny. 

Today Elvis was supposed to start using the toilet.  Yes, I decided that.  After all these years, I still think I have some control over the event.  Well.  I think I've finally disabused myself of that notion, at least temporarily.  I'm fresh out of Nemo underpants and patience, and I've decided that perhaps it is Sugar Daddy's turn to toilet-teach a child.  When he'll find time to do that, I don't know.  (Maybe between business trips to Paris–ooh la la!)  But I am done, for today and maybe for ever, because how can I clean carpets when I have so much else to do, and more still that I'd rather be doing?  How can I give Elvis the attention he needs to successfully master his sphincters when what I really want is to neglect him and finish the manuscript(s) I started two and three years ago and keep abandoning because my family needs me more?  Stupid family.

I almost finished something last month.  I came so very, very close.  I may yet finish it.  Perhaps even this very year.  I have a whole seven and a half months left of it, you know.  Perhaps Elvis will be toilet-trained before the age of four as well.  He will be setting a Madhousehold record, in that case.  Oh, it's only April and I'm still so full of optimism.  It's the magic of spring, I tell you, the magic of spring.

I don't often use the "mothers' lounge" at our church because it is frequently more convenient to stay put and nurse discreetly wherever I may be at the time.  Also, because the room they have set up as the mothers' lounge is cold and smells like hell.  The latter feature is due largely to the fact that the mothers' lounge also houses the only diaper-changing station in the building.  (Coincidence???)  I suppose this would be okay if a) the room were properly ventilated to accommodate an appliance of this variety, or b) the diaper pail wasn't a refugee from the 1970's.  I'm fairly certain my mother had one exactly like this, for cloth diapers.  I think this particular diaper pail could very well be harboring odors that originated thirty years ago.  It is that foul.

Everyone who comes in to change her kid's diaper apologizes to the nursing mothers for polluting the air and compromising their infants' respiratory health with her toddler's nasty fecal matter vapors, but really, the actual act of changing the foul toddler's diaper doesn't bother anyone.  It's when they lift the lid off that awful diaper pail that we all start gagging and can't help but think, "If you were really sorry, Dear Sister, you would leave that diaper pail alone and pack the nasty package out of here."  But no one does that.  They all just leave the room with their freshened-up child and abandon the rest of us to the Ghosts of Diapers Past.

There is a conspiracy theory that the Brethren don't want the mothers' lounge to become too comfortable because then all the ladies would just end up staying in there socializing instead of attending their church meetings.  (It's true, but how dare they presume.)  I'm not a conspiracy theorist.  I just think that Mormons–specifically Mormon women–in general are loath to take the initiative when it comes to changing things in the church, even something with so little potential for global repercussions as a new diaper pail.  It's not because we're oppressed.  It's because the church is such a huge, monstrous bureaucracy with its fingers in every conceivable pie that we automatically assume that there must be some formal procedure requiring approval from Salt Lake before we can do anything to alter the church building.  It's not conscious.  If it were conscious, we'd realize we were being ridiculous.  Like I have.

So, fancying myself something of a humanitarian, I've decided I'm going to buy my church building a Diaper Genie.  I've never owned a Diaper Genie myself, mostly because the idea of having to buy all those bag refills offends me.  My Inner Environmentalist thinks it smacks of gratuitous consumption.  My Inner Pragmatist says my Inner Environmentalist is a hypocrite and why should we listen to anything she says when she never sees fit to show up at meetings where crucial issues are discussed–and also that this is one of those Better-The-Environment-Than-Us situations, so maybe Negative Nelly over here should just shut up. 

Seriously, I will gladly buy refills for this thing for the next ten years, if it will improve the olfactory health of the dozens–nay, hundreds–of women and children who use this facility.

So anyway, yes, the last time I checked, the Diaper Genie was the Cadillac of diaper pails.  Acknowledging that no diaper-disposal system is perfect, can any owners of Diaper Genies tell me if they're really all that and a bag of chips?  Actually, I'll settle for all that.  I don't really need the bag of chips.  (Unless, of course, you're not going to eat them.)  Or is there a new diaper pail in town that I have to try?  Did I mention that this is important?

Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level Score

Purgatory (Repenting Believers) Very High

Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) Moderate

Level 2 (Lustful) Very Low

Level 3 (Gluttonous) Moderate

Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) Very Low

Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) Moderate

Level 6 - The City of
Dis (Heretics) Very Low

Level 7 (Violent) Low

Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) Moderate

Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) Very Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Yikes! The Malebolge! That was unexpected.

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"Is there no end to the poop in this house? People are just constantly defecating!"–Overheard recently in the Madhousehold

So it has come to this. I was on Yahoo this morning searching for encopresis support groups. Would you believe there are only three, and none of them is currently active? I actually don't like online support groups, but I'm desperate. (No, I do not suffer from encopresis myself, wiseacres. Not directly, anyway.) I spent my last visit with the shrink detailing my frustrations over my son's bowel habits. "It's not that I'm obsessed with it–it sounds like I'm obsessed with it, but I'm not obsessed with it. It's just that I feel so overwhelmed and not in control of my life, and on top of everything, I'm surrounded by human feces–all the time, all day long, they're always with me, in my face, on my floor, everywhere! I'm not obsessed! It's just that when your house is basically functioning as a giant litter box, life can be really–"

"S****y?" the doctor offered.

"I guess so."

I was looking stuff up on the internet–which is an act of courage when the subject is poop–and the most disheartening thing I read was the sentence, "Encopresis can often be cured." Excuse me, often be cured? Does that mean it sometimes can't be cured? Which means that my child very well may fall into that tiny category of cases that will NEVER BE CURED? People, you can't say stuff like that. It pushes people like me over the edge.

I found an old journal from 2001 in which I detailed my angst over Princess Zurg not yet being potty trained at the ripe old age of three. I used to console myself in those days with the knowledge that she would eventually learn to change her own diapers, and when she went away to college, the whole problem would be out of sight, out of mind (for me anyway–the dean of students might have a different take on it). I'll never forget the day she decided she was going to do all of her business on the toilet. She was not quite four and a half. I remember thinking, "Wow. It's finally over. None of my other children could possibly be harder to toilet-train than she was. Every diaper exodus from here on out is going to be a piece of cake."

That's what your oldest child is for: to give you a false sense of security.

Recently I came to the realization that–with the exception of the five days I spent in
Virginia in May–I have been changing diapers every day for the last seven years, three months, and three days. That's 2,587 days minus five of up close and personal contact with other people's bodily wastes. I was always changing someone's diaper. The last thing I did before going to the hospital to give birth to Mister Bubby was change Princess Zurg's diaper. Then I had to start changing Mister Bubby's diaper, and when I came back home I had to change both of their diapers. While I was pregnant with Elvis, I only had to change Mister Bubby's diapers, but once Elvis was born, I had to change Elvis' diaper and Mister Bubby's diaper, and since Princess Zurg started wetting the bed again, I was again changing her diaper. If a sheet and bedspread count as a diaper–which, as far as she was concerned, it did. I finally put her in pull-ups a year and a half ago, and I would say those definitely count as diapers, so I am now, technically, changing three sets of diapers. And I'm pregnant again. Because I'm an idiot.

I've often wondered what is wrong with me. Like I actually sit down and say aloud, "What is wrong with me?" I consider myself a reasonably competent person in most every respect. I can't do brain surgery, you know, but most of the everyday tasks of life fall within my sphere of capability. Nevertheless, I have failed, in a most pathetic manner, to transfer responsibility for my children's waste excretions to their shoulders. So to speak. It was one thing when it was just PZ who preferred sitting in her own filth to using the miracle of modern plumbing. But now that MB has informed me that he really doesn't freaking care if he never poops in the toilet because he doesn't want to get Spiderman stickers or go to school or join the FBI–I have to think this is less a function of the child's personality than my grossly inadequate parenting style. Seriously. I'm sure he's not the only four and a half year old out there still in disposable training pants, but don't you tend to think us parents of said four and a half year olds must be a few sandwiches short of a picnic? I do.

So there's a lovely Mormon hymn called "Know This, That Every Soul Is Free," in which we sing, "For unto us this truth is giv'n/That God will force no man to Heav'n." Every time I hear that, I think, boy, ain't that the truth. Lately, though, when I hear it, I also think, God sure doesn't have to change diapers, does he?

I don't believe I've ever talked to a pediatrician who thought a parent had any control over when a child started using the potty. They all say it'll happen when the child is ready. All the toilet-training literature talks about waiting until a child is ready, and watching for the signs of readiness. I've been waiting and watching, and what I've observed is that the signs of readiness will all certainly appear eventually–just never simultaneously. One element of readiness is always missing. It's possible that my kids are just freaks, but I don't really think so. I think I've just missed whatever windows of opportunity I may have had because I was waiting for signs of readiness that weren't forthcoming, or I psychologically damaged my offspring by forging ahead in the absence of non-forthcoming signs because I figured, good holy hell, the kid is three, what's the deal? Who would have thought toilet-training had to be so very precise?

Of course I realize MB has a medical condition at this point, but I still suspect I am somehow responsible for it. I didn't, as What To Expect the Toddler Years instructed me, "help my child to feel good about the products of elimination." I didn't feed him enough fiber. And now that the problem has continued for so long, there is definitely a psychological aspect to his behavior (or lack of a specific aspect thereof), which I'm sure I've contributed to because how on earth does a parent stay calm and non-judgmental about poop on her floor indefinitely? I'm envisioning, years from now, my son sitting in his own psychiatrist's office, talking about poop and insisting that he's not obsessed–but his mother sure was.

Mister Bubby  is not wearing diapers today.  He has used the potty five times and has had two accidents.  So far I've only had to bribe him with stickers and cheap, worthless toys.  I thought I might have to offer him a PlayStation2 to get him to poop on the potty, but he settled for a Spiderman tattoo.  A temporary one, of course.  (Not that I wouldn't have considered a real one, if that's what it took.)It's a red-letter day.

So I took Mister Bubby for his well-child appointment today–about three months overdue, but who's counting?  Fortunately he stopped throwing up long enough to go.  Heh.  So, yeah, we were at the doctor and he had his vision and hearing checked.  The doctor said his vision score was borderline, so I should probably have an eye doctor check him out.  Then we talked about his encopresis (feel free to Google it if you like, but you'll be sorry) and toilet-training (or lack of it), and she said, "Have we ever checked his urine?  We should probably check his urine."

Uhh, do we have to?

"It's probably fine, but we should do it, just to be safe."

Uh huh.  And if I could get him to pee in a cup, I think I wouldn't be having this conversation, would I?

"Well, we can put a bag on him, like we do with babies."

Cool!  I can't wait.

Yes, the lack of quotation marks means I didn't say any of these things.  I just contorted my face into various skeptical-looking grimaces, and she understood me.  His pediatrician and I obviously have a good rapport.  It's important, you know.  You should probably take notes if you aren't already. 

Anyway, she left the room and while we waited for the nurse, I tried to explain to MB as nonchalantly as possible that the nurse was going to come put a bag on his boy part so we could collect some pee and make sure he was nice and healthy. 

"I am healthy," he said.

"Yes, I know, but she has to make sure your pee is healthy."  Or something like that.

"My pee is healthy."

Yeah, I know, this is probably a waste of time, but if you'd just use the freaking potty, maybe you could keep your dignity–it's worth a shot, man.

My son and I don't have the same rapport as his pediatrician and I have.  I'm working on it, though.

Long story short–and I know you don't want the long story–he got the bag, he didn't like it, he didn't pee in it, he kept messing with it until it would no longer stay put, and I said, screw it, let's go to Safeway and buy some bread.  Actually, I think I said that part out loud.  He was okay with that.

I have the bag and the cup, but I'm still trying to decide if I've gone far enough down the road toward giving him a lifetime complex about elimination that it no longer matters what else I do, or if there is still time to turn back and avoid a major Freudian episode twenty years from now.

One of the things I appreciate most about this blogging experience is the responses I get to particular posts.  Whilst in the process of writing about a particular subject, I often don't know what it is I'm trying to say.  Well, some part of me deeply recessed in the right brain perhaps knows what I'm trying to say, but that part of me doesn't speak English very well, and the left side of my brain gets very frustrated, starts using a lot of question marks, and eventually gives up.  Then other people start talking back, and their remarks prompt me to think in ways I wasn't able to do before.

In addition to making me wonder if I was much too hard on Notting Hill (do I just hate Julia Roberts? do I not love Hugh Grant the way I say I do?), some of the comments made me wonder what I really expect of my romantic entertainments in the first place.  Do I really want them to be more realistic?  No, because realism makes for pretty dull (and rather depressing at times) entertainment.  It's all about that "willing suspension of disbelief," "the lie that tells the truth."  I don't expect romances to be realistic–just believable.  But why is it that I seldom find romance believable anymore?  Am I just a cranky, disillusioned housewife? 

Well, probably.  In many ways I have always been too pragmatic for my own good ("it's just as easy to fall in love with a working man as it is with an unemployed one"), but in other ways I have always been kind of a sap.  I rooted for Sam and Diane, for David and Maddie, for Scully and Mulder–even, God help me, for Joanie and Chachi.  (And why did Greg never marry Marcia?  I don't know.)  And personally, I thought it was pretty darn romantic when Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock fell in love at the end of Speed–even though relationships based on intense experiences never work out.  (For evidence, see Speed 2.  On second thought, don't.)

And speaking of romance, the other night Mister Bubby was telling us about his picture and explained that one of the figures was his girlfriend, and another was his "other girlfriend."  Princess Zurg asked what his girlfriend's name was. 

"Lisa," he replied.  (He loves the name Lisa, for reasons I haven't figured out yet.  To my knowledge we know no Lisas.)

"And who's your other girlfriend?" PZ asked.  "Is it me?"

"No," he said, implying that he found the suggestion ridiculous.

"If it isn't me, then who is it?"

"I think…Mommy."

Well, thank goodness.

Summer is a good time to make drastic changes.  I, for one, have just gotten another haircut.  I usually try to do it every six months, whether I need it or not, but this time I waited a mere four.  Time alone is so precious I hate to waste it on things like trips to the salon, dental appointments, and the like.  But eventually I get so disgusted with my hair that I walk into the salon–any salon, which is really living dangerously, believe me–sit down and say, "Cut it all off!  Cut cut cut!"  And inevitably over the course of said haircut the stylist will keep asking, "Now the length is going to end up about here–is that okay or is it too short?"  And I'll say, "You can't cut it too short unless you shave me bald.  Even then, it will grow back.  Cut cut cut!"  And they almost never cut it short enough, but at least I get a good shampoo out of the deal.This time I was extremely adventurous and got a haircut I haven't had since before I was married (with children, why bother?):  the A-line bob.  (I tried to find a decent image for you, but I couldn't.  In the process of trying, however, I did run across a new website–quite by accident, which is what made it funny–www.mormonchic.com.  Can't wait to check that one out.)  I was hoping it would make me look younger, and it does.  Well, it would make me look younger still if my hair weren't graying (prematurely! prematurely!) in front, which is why I picked up a L'Oreal ColorSpa Moisture Actif temporary hair coloring kit last night. 

I used to color my hair before Sugar Daddy and I got married, but at some point he told me he didn't care too much for that un-natch-ural look, so I figured, whatever, that will save me some cash.  We've finally been married long enough that I feel like I can ignore his preferences with impunity.  So when he saw the hair coloring kit, he asked me, "What if I come home and you just look crazy?"

"Well, I suppose you can pretend you're sleeping with a whole new woman," I said.  "Won't that be exciting?"

"Hubba hubba!  Can you get one of those temporary tattoos, too, so I can pretend you're one of those hard rocker chicks?"

Then he started asking me if I'd ever considered going blonde, and the conversation deteriorated from there.I'll let you all know how it feels to be a redhead again.

I've heard that summertime is also the best time for toilet-training.  Presumably because you can just let the kid run around naked.  The scent of urine-soaked carpet is something I would not ordinarily want to experiment with in the summer, but between Elvis's yet-to-abate diarrhea and Princess Zurg's tendency to randomly leave her used pull-ups in various corners of her room under piles of who-knows-what, I feel like we've gone about as fer as we kin go in the smelly department, and it's time someone stopped contributing to the collective stench. 

Since the doctors tell me PZ is genetically destined to wet the bed indefinitely and Elvis is too young to toilet train, the burden falls, as usual, on the shoulders of the middle child, Mister Bubby.  Every day he seems less interested in growing up than he did the day before, but at this point he's old enough to have a conversation about the issue.  I'll let him know in some subtle way that chicks really dig a man who knows how to use a potty.  Maybe I'll just tell him that if he wants to have me for a girlfriend, he's going to have to give up his other mistress, diapers.  Well, I won't take the plunge for a few days, so I still have time to think of something.  In the meantime, it's off to disinfect the house I go.

The other day I was standing in line at the Target, wondering where on earth all my money was going every month, when it hit me:

Three sizes of diapers.

Technically, one of those diapers is not a "diaper," but what we call a "pull-up," "disposable underpants," "insert euphimism here."  They're worn by Princess Zurg, only at nighttime, going on a year now. 

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG TO BRING ALL OF YOU NON-PARENTS AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:  IF THERE IS ANY POSSIBILITY THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE CHILDREN OF YOUR OWN SOMEDAY, YOU MUST KEEP READING!  MADHOUSEWIFE IS THE ORACLE WARNING YOU TO BEWARE YOUR OWN HUBRIS.  IGNORE HER AT YOUR PERIL.

I should really begin at the beginning.  Two of my sisters started having children before I did.  Their boys were especially difficult to toilet-train.  My father and his wife are both old-school toilet-trainers (i.e. they believe a child's ability and desire to use the toilet are entirely under the parent's control), so they each gave my sisters a hard time about their three-year-old sons still in diapers.  At the time I thought, and I know I said out loud (though not to my sisters' faces, thank God), "That will never be me."

Fast forward to Princess Zurg's third birthday.  She was still in diapers.  We'd attempted toilet-training somewhere around 27 months, but found she was not physiologically capable.  I was expecting Mister Bubby at the time, and the pressure was very much on.  A month before my due date we gave it another whirl, but by this time she'd caught on to the fact that Something Was Up, and even though she had complete control over her sphincters, she chose to use that power for evil.  Specifically in our closet.  So we hung up the Big Girl Panties indefinitely and invested in Kimberly-Clark.Sugar Daddy was feeling some financial stress and informed me that "we" really needed to get PZ to use the potty.  I asked him if I could just start going without food so that we could afford to buy diapers, but since I was still breastfeeding MB, he didn't think that idea was so hot.  So we compromised by switching to cloth diapers. 

Ah, yes, cloth diapers.  You know, back in the day, everyone used cloth diapers, and everyone was toilet-trained by 18 months because they just couldn't stand it anymore.  So the story was told to me.  Well, PZ wasn't fond of cloth diapers, either, but she learned to live with them.  Fortunately we had gotten our own washer and dryer by then, but that didn't eliminate (so to speak) the need for the dreaded toilet-swishing.  (Note to childless folks who are cringing and thinking about navigating away from this page:  Grow up.  If only you knew what I was leaving out.  You can thank me later.) After about three and a half months of this, forgive me, crap, SD decided that enough was enough.  (I mean, really–he could only stand there and let me wash every single dirty diaper all by myself for so long.)  PZ must be potty-trained, he told me.  A-OK, I said.  Your wish is my command. 

My technique was really quite brilliant, but I won't share it here because it only worked for her and that only because she was freaking three and a half.  But technically, it only sort of half-worked.  For the next year she insisted on doing #2 (you know, the one that counts) in a diaper, and she absolutely refused to use the Big Potty.  Until the day one or both of us hit on the brilliant strategy–or voodoo, or whatever it was–that persuaded her to wear panties full-time.  Once she made that decision, that was it.  QED.  All potty all the time.  No night wetting.  End of story.

OR SO WE THOUGHT!  If this were Friday the 13th, Jason would be jumping out of the lake at this point.  One day, about a month before she turned five, she started wetting the bed.  She had been sick, so I figured it was not such a big deal.  Then she stopped being sick, and she kept wetting the bed, and kept wetting the bed, and kept wetting the bed.  Sometimes she would wet the bed twice in one night.  Sometimes three times.  It made no nevermind what she'd had to eat or drink or when she retired for the evening.  Her bladder worked like a ghost was controlling it.  I took her to the doctor, who said, "Huh.  That's weird."  They tested her for a UTI, which of course she didn't have, and then they sent me on my not-so-merry way.

SD was adamant that we not put her back in diapers.  I mean, after all "we" had been through to get her out of them, "we" would have to be crazy to go backwards like that.  I actually tended to agree with him, partly because I feared damaging her self-confidence, partly because I was hoping I'd wake up and it would all be a bad dream.  Then I remembered that I was already awake because between getting up multiple times a night to change the sheets and multiple times to nurse newborn Elvis, I was living the bad dream.

Push came to shove when we had to move and pack up our beds.  There was just no way in hell I was going to risk–no, not risk–fail to prevent her from peeing on the floor in her sleep the night before we left that apartment for good.  So, forgiveness being easier to come by than permission in our household, I bought the pull-up pants and I'm afraid I have yet to look back. 

Oh, we've had our "trial runs" since then.  PZ was very motivated to get princess panties, but she just couldn't manage to stay dry at night.  Ever.  She got tired of waking up wet three times a night, so she gave up the dream.  Recently I took her to her new pediatrician, who said, "Huh.  That's weird.  Well, hang in there."  Followed by another negative UTI test, of course.

After my ordeal(s) with toilet-training PZ, I swore I would never bring up the subject with another child until said child walked up to me and said, "Excuse me, Mother.  I'm getting on a bit in years, and these diapers are beginning to chafe.  I would like to start using the toilet now, please.  Would you direct me to the Big Kid Pants?"

Of course I was lying to myself.  No parent can resist entertaining the possibility that one's child might be toilet-trained before the age of 10.  I don't care who you are.  So when Mister Bubby started showing an interest in the potty, and an understanding of the usage thereof, I thought, Hot diggity, bring on the Thomas the Tank Engine underwear.  True, I was a little nervous because he wasn't yet two.  But he seemed so toilet-savvy.  And he was.  He just wasn't physiologically capable of controlling those all-important muscles.  (At this point you might be wondering, how did she know he wasn't ready?  Trust me, when the kid all of a sudden starts peeing and gets this look on his face like, "What the h—?" and repeats that eight or nine times without variation over the next few hours, he's not ready.)

Fast forward to the present day.  PZ is no longer motivated to ever stop wearing pull-ups.  Elvis has diarrhea.  I have no idea what this kid has eaten, but it never stops giving.  And I find myself in the awkward and unenviable position of begging MB to let me change his soiled diaper because he's just so darn attached to the thing (literally and figuratively, as it happens).  Several times a day now I tell myself, "This is not how it should be.  I've made a terrible mistake somewhere.  When did it all go wrong?  I'm just a simple girl trying to get by.  Will my hands ever be clean again?" 

I'll be honest with you now:  please do not give me any advice.  If you feel my pain, share with me.  If your kid went through the same thing and is now a Nobel prize-winning scientist who changes his own diapers, tell me so.  I welcome all legends about the light at the end of the tunnel.