Pooh Pooh To The Potty Party

Well, it’s happened. My baby has grown into a toddler. I think it’s “official” when they hit the 2’s, even though the word toddle describes their first Franken-steps perfectly. The only problem is what follows, that dreaded next phase: Potty Training.

Yeah, I know, most people are thrilled to reach this milestone. The milestone that makes their child into an actual little people-ish person instead of a baby. The milestone that marks the end of buying those expensive poop holders.  An exciting milestone that marks the growth of your precious little darling.

These people are clearly imbeciles and never leave their houses.

If these people ever DID leave their houses, they would understand my extreme reluctance to move into the toilet training stage. They would know that diapering is just so much easier and that at this stage in my life, I love easier. Easier is my best friend. I would marry easier if it didn’t mean an expensive, messy divorce from the love of my life. I will gladly pay the money for those butt covers just to know that I’m not spending extra time and money cleaning clothes that have had messes, car seats that have seen accidents and bedding that didn’t survive nap time unscathed. Heiny hiders mean I don’t have to invest in bleach by the gallon for those Clorox commercial type of moments. (And for those of you who don’t know me, yes, I DO need to have bleach-clean bathrooms. It’s not the slightest, teensiest bit optional.)

Even if I was okay with adding an exorbitant task list of laundry and cleaning, it’s the time investment that also kills you. When you’re potty training, you have to ask your kid every 4 minutes if they have to go to the bathroom. Of course they’re going to say no, those contrary creatures, which means every tenth time you ask you have to plop their uncooperative butt on that plastic, portable potty seat and give them 73 books to try and convince them to go to the bathroom “on the pot”. After 30 minutes, you’ll put them back into their “big boy underwear” (so named to try and get them to muster up the required enthusiasm to potty train because even they know diapers are easier) only to have them have an accident five minutes later.

Sigh.

Yeah, I know, it sounds like I have a little bit of potty training PTSD. The traumatic experiences of the children that have come before have caused a feeling of terror at the thought of ditching the diapies. It’s not even all my children that have traumatized me, just the boys. I barely even remember the process with my daughter. I’m pretty sure she trained in like 5 minutes. Or so it feels in comparison to my sons who were completely ok with not being a big boy if it meant they could keep their diapers. I was so discouraged with the first child that I was convinced I’d have the only kindergartener with training pants in the tri-county area. But then the daughter came next and was so easy-peasy that I was convinced the first kid was just a pain in the ass. (Which frankly, most kids are. It’s in their job descriptions.)

Until number 3 had the same issues and made me have horrible flashbacks of number 1 not going number 2. Shudder. Although there was a lot less panic with him (kid #3 after all), it still left some fresh wounds.

So you can see why the thought of going through it again is less than appealing.

I will say, however, that as a fourth time mom, I’m more relaxed about the process. No, it’s not the Prozac and wine I’m guzzling to get me through these dark times. It’s the knowledge that I’ve never actually heard of a kid who wasn’t completely housebroken by the time they started school. Sure, it’s probably happened. But I haven’t heard about it so that makes everything peachy keen in my rosy little corner of the world. (Don’t try to disabuse me of this notion. Prozac only gets a chick so far.)

So it’s coming. Like a terrible Sy Fy sequel  that you can’t believe anyone actually wants, (Hello Sharknado!) it’ll be here before you know it. Until then, I’m just going to bury my head in the sand, snuggle with my not-a-big-boy-yet, and buy another box of Pampers.

Take This House And Shove It

So we started the process of preparing our house to put on the market. Four years ago. Ok, ok, admittedly, there were some pleasant surprises (Like new babies. Well, one. One baby.) and some not so pleasant surprises as well (Hello leak under the concrete slab!) that made it so much more drawn out than we wanted it to be. I'm sure we might have been able to pare down this length of time to like three years and eleven months, but we slacked for that one month two and a half years ago, so there's that.

So we are going through these steps of making this house so fantastic that we're going to ask ourselves, "Why are we selling again?" and basically it sucks. Not the house, the rehabbing of the house. The painting, the nailing, the cleaning, the painting, the fixing, the moving, the painting...... I swear to God above if I never see another paintbrush again I'll be happy. But we do it. And we manage to not kill each other in the process, double bonus!

Then the moment we've been waiting for: The house goes on the market.

And now another hell begins. It's called "Keep your house clean at all times because someone is going to want to see your house and your dirty socks on the floor might make them tell you to take this house and shove it". Or preparing for showings for short. Now, I'm not a messy, sloppy person. Unfortunately, I have three other people that live with me that kind of, well, are. Granted, some of them short people are two and can't eat a bowl of cereal without a catastrophe, let alone leave a clean floor behind. I'm thinking that this could be some sort of exotic torture. Just lock someone in a house and tell them to keep it clean and then drop in unexpectedly for inspections. Oh, and give them a puppy, a parakeet, and the biggest potted plant you can find.

Within three days, the house was under contract. No, I'm not even kidding. Four years of cleaning, fixing, stressing, bleeding money and then bam! It's all over in a New York minute. (I'm going to admit right here that I don't know exactly how long a New York minute is, but I really wanted to use the saying.) Wait, this means I can stop cleaning every square inch of my home at all times? Ok, I'm sold. (Ha! Pun intended.)

Once you find people who want to inhabit your house, and if you're lucky to have the new house also under contract, there are 83,000 pages of papers to sign and at least 473 checks to write. Nope, I'm not even exaggerating, (by much more than 95%) I promise. You get to pay persons who are way more qualified than you are to come and critique your house. Yeah, yeah, inspect it. Same difference. They're basically judging you and your inferior housing updates. No, I'm kidding, they don't give a crap! And you don't either if it means you can sell your house! But you do care about the inspection on your potential new house. Where you learn every single small project your husband will have for the next year. (Or two years if he tells you he's taking a mandatory one year project free hiatus.)

So you make it through all 89,765 pages of both contracts. You robbed the national bank to finance the septic flow tests and the inspections and the myriad other things involved. Now what?

Breathe. Have one last party. Shed a tear for leaving this wonderful neighborhood that you've lived in and loved for the last decade. But most importantly, step away from those paint samples.

Step away from the swatches and no one will get hurt!