Potty Training Twins: In the trenches

Let's get one thing straight. I'm sorry to say, I have nothing positive to say on this matter. If you're reading this looking for words of hopeful encouragement and optimism, you should probably go find another blog post about potty training twins. If you want someone to throw a potty pity party with, then I'm your gal.

And one more thing, these past few months have been AWFUL. I have never been so frustrated, mad, stressed, annoyed, and straight up angry in all of my parenting days...which I'm aware, aren't very many yet, but I'm just saying. Goodness gracious.

SO now that we've got that straight, let me tell you what the last few months have been like for me.

Around the time when the twins turned 18 months, I had a distant thought about potty training. At about 22 months, I bought a potty and Elmo potty time DVD, sat my twins in front of Elmo on their little potties and stated to the world I was brave enough to potty train twins.

I don't think I could have been more wrong. Potty time turned into play time. I had 2 kids swimming in the potty more often than I'd care to discuss. Poop was flying left and right and so I threw up the white flag and said I was done. We'll try again....later.

Soon after they turned 2, that day came. I decided I'd try one at a time. Again, potty time turned into a fight for mommy's attention, screams of terror as I threatened to make them sit on the potty, and my carpets had never been more filthy, then clean, then filthy again, then clean again. That steam cleaner was a GREAT investment, FYI. There was a day I literally threw the boys at my neighbors, threw Amelia in the tub, and just wanted to sit on the floor crying instead of cleaning up AGAIN. Soon after that terrible day I quit with the potty training. AGAIN.

So here I am, with almost 32 month old twins (that's almost 3 for you mathematicians out there) and I am daring to put out in the world that I have a potty trained daughter and a son, who, bless his heart, is trying. So how in the world did all of that mess and despair get to a potty trained kid?

Honestly, beats the crap out of me. No, not the crap I cleaned off of the carpet a million times for days and days and days.

What did I do different? After we came home from our holiday travels, I decided, once again, I would try to potty train. I took the "I don't care, you're wearing underwear, you can sit on the potty if you want or not, and cry and poop and pee and do whatever you want but you're not wearing a diaper again" approach. Yes, that's the technical term. I stopped forcing. I kept asking. I stopped caring (sort of). And magically, Amelia will now ask to go potty, doesn't have accidents, and seems quite content to wear her princess underwear.

I feel like I've put in my time in the potty world that I deserved this happy ending, but I wish I knew how we got here so I could repeat it with #2 and #3.  You know all those people who say it just clicks? Well, apparently, it does just click. And then you're done. And you might forget your months and months (or in our case, almost a year) of torture and messes. Almost forget it, but not quite. I'm a little sad that jut because 1 got it, I'm still in the thick of potty training, but having 1 done does give me the hope that someday I will be done changing diapers. It certainly won't be tomorrow, but someday. Sigh.

I'll report back with updates on my next potty training attempts. #2 is going to be a lot more of a challenge I'm afraid. I'm still deciding if I want to push on and just get the messes done with or take a break from cleaning my floors for a few weeks...or months. I'll keep you posted.

For now, can we just all give me a virtual high 5 for being 1 down...2 (and maybe more down the road...no I'm not pregnant, I'm just saying) to go!