The Latest Adventure In Potty Training

Some Of My Favorite Things
Let me start off by saying that ever since I’ve become a stepmother I have made quite a few (a lot) of realizations (changes) about the most randomness things – particularly products and their effectiveness.

Here are some of my new found favorite things, and why.

OxyClean: I enjoyed your oxygen cleaning power before for doing laundry, but I had no idea how wonderful you really were for removing potential stain makers from my carpet. I mean, just look at my strong and brave beige carpet. I bet you wouldn’t be able to tell that it had previous encounters with cherry and grape popsicle juice, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos vomit, or chocolate frosting.

Distilled White Vinegar: Your are a fairly recent discovery and latest love of my life. You kill and removes mold oh so well! For details read this.

Scotch Brite Scrubbing Pads: How I love that I can cut you up into tiny, little pieces to scrub away the awfulness of mold, chewed bubble gum, sticky and wet lollypops and vomit. And I don’t feel guilty about throwing you away after one use. Gone are the days of watching my hard earn cash go into the trash when I had to use a dish washing sponge.

Clorox Anywhere Hard Surfaces: You are by far one of my favorites that I hold dear to my heart! In fact, I don’t know what I would do if you were not in my life (the thought is blasphemy against life itself!!!) You clean and sanitize Anything and Everything (well except Sharpe marker, but I can forgive you for that) off of my floors, counter tops, tables and chairs. Especially all the fresh and the somewhat dried foods and sauces that Younger Boy insists on decorating furniture with!

Clorox Disinfecting Wipes: You! Wonderful, Fabulous You! A tie with your hardworking sibling Clorox Anywhere Hard Surface as one that I hold dear to my heart! You have yet to let me down! (Except probably now that I have used the last of you and longingly stare at your empty carton wishing I could will more of you to form inside.)

And Clorox Disinfecting Wipes brings me to my latest instant mom experience and inspiration for this post my dear friends.

Past Occurrences
As you are all aware, I’ve been diligently potty-training Younger Boy. In fact, we’re working on wiping and leaving our pants on around our ankles instead of stripping down butt naked when needing to use the bathroom. In fact, I’m fairly convinced that Younger Boy is working rather intensely toward trying to make me lose my mind. (What he doesn’t know is that I already lost it a long ago and only pretend that I have one.) I say this because he really likes to wait for us to be alone to pull out whatever challenge he’s going to bust out for the day.

Past Occurrences include this, this, this, and oh yes, this.

Others include the infamous Cantaloupe Stand-Off. (If I’ve already told this story I apologize. You may skip down to The Latest Occurrence.) You see, Younger Boy very much enjoys stuffing his cheeks with food. I think he’s part squirrel or something and he’s saving up to snack on this hidden food later. Anyway, one day he shoved four small pieces of cantaloupe in his cheeks. He chewed that stuff for a good 15 to 20 minutes. Within those 15 to 20 minutes he proceeded to tell me reasons why he couldn’t possibly swallow it.

1.It was too hot.
2.It was too cold.
3.It hurt him.
4.It was too slimy/mushy
5.It’s just not fair *followed by a head down on the table and an exasperated sigh of frustration.*

I did, however, win that stand off. I offered a fresh (non-floating particle filled) glass of water in exchange for him swallowing it. He swallowed it.

The Latest Occurrence
I again, was listening in to my weekly meeting when I hear Younger Boy go running by me with his hands holding his butt wailing “I haaave to go pooooo pooooo.”

I responded with my usual, “Then go pooooo pooooo” and resumed listening in to my meeting. About 7 minutes had passed when I thought, “Hrm, I should go check on him. He hasn’t asked for help to wipe yet.” I round the corner to the bathroom, which had a closed door by the way. My heart began to race. I open it up, peer around and was lucky that the phone was on mute.

There he was, stamping my bathroom floor with beautiful, brown poop stamps. He’d already smeared it across the bathroom seat getting on and off (which leads me to believe it had started to poke out during his insistence of removing his pants and socks before climbing up on the toilet. And for some reason had plopped his poop covered little butt down on the floor, twice. Do I even dare mention that about 1/4 of the toilet paper roll was in the toilet?

I once again, my talented self, attended my meeting while I helped him clean up. At this point he’s actually a pro at taking showers and using soapy hands to wipe himself clean in the shower. All the while, with the assistance of my two favorite cleaning items from Clorox, I scrubbed and wiped and sanitized my bathroom.

Do I even dare mention that while I was assisting Younger Boy to get his hands all nice and soapy I turned around to find the cat examining one of the poop stamps? Oh yes, the cat was sniffing and was just about to examine it with his paw with I performed *now imagine this in slow motion* a swooping down motion with my hand to bat him away while saying “Nooo, Dooon’t touch thaaat you naaasty caaat.” All of this while holding the phone to my ear.

So there you go – my latest experience with Potty-Training Younger Boy, and a list of my favorite things that in my opinion anyone with kids (or pets) should most likely have in their home. I even took a photo for you so that you'll know exactly what products to look for.