The Joys of Boys

When I was younger and thought about having kids, I always pictured myself with girls. I have two sisters and no brothers. I guess I just assumed I'd end up with the same as what I had growing up. Actually, I never really thought about the number of kids I would have, just that I'd have a couple of girls. I never imagined having four boys. I was delighted when I found out our first child was a girl. Picking out the patterns for her nursery, choosing cute little outfits and sandals, filling the closet with dresses in a sea of pink and purple... it was so much fun! At my baby shower, I got the cutest little gifts with "Princess" embroidered on them that we sat around her pink room. As  Princess grew, it was always so much fun to buy her new clothes. Anyone who's been to any store knows that the Girls' Department is five times bigger than the Boys'. Girls' clothes can be any color and have any picture or design. Boys' clothes are always the same colors and typically have a dinosaur or some type of automobile on them.

When I found out I was having a boy during my second pregnancy, I was ecstatic! Having a girl first made the second time exciting either way. I'd have a set of daughters, or I'd have one of each, a boy and a girl. I also received the cutest baby boy clothes and toys at my baby shower. Instead of accessories embroidered with "Princess", I got things that said "Little Dude" or "Little Man". Thankfully nothing said "Prince". I couldn't bring myself to decorate a room using the word "Prince". There weren't as many choices when picking out a theme for Pirate's nursery. Everything boyish seemed to be sports themed or animal themed. We went with a combination, teddy bears holding basketballs, baseballs, and soccer balls. His room was painted blue, and turned out very cute. As he grew, buying new clothes was easier because there was less of a selection.

Fast forward five years, and the cute little boy nursery is now home to two cribs, torn teddy bear border, and a few "Little Dude" picture frames that are still empty. All four of my boys have used this room when they were babies, and the two little guys are still in there. By the time you have a second boy, then a third and fourth (within the same year), you don't really care if the nursery is cute. It just has to be safe. The clothes that were cute the first time around are now faded and stained. They outgrow the stuff so fast it's not really worth buying a whole new baby wardrobe. As they grow, we still buy them new clothes. Where Pirate might have had a red shirt with a tractor on it, Trouble's might be blue with an airplane, Curly's is orange with a dinosaur, and Superchunk's is green with a car. Not a lot of selection, but they don't care, and neither do I.

The picture I had of having girls has morphed into life with one girl and four boys. Where I thought I'd have a house full of baby dolls and Barbies, there are Legos everywhere and superheroes galore. The kids all seem to get along pretty well. Boys and girls are just different from each other. Boys do grosser things than girls. Not that Princess doesn't have her share of bad habits, but the boys are worse. Lately I've noticed that Trouble and Pirate play together better than they used to. They are also teaching each other bad habits. For example, the other day Trouble came running in saying, "Pirate just burped right in my face!". Pirate followed saying, "Because he farted on my leg!". I also caught them peeing in toilet at the same time, standing across from each other. I find boogers in random places around the house, and they always blame each other. Someone always has a finger in their nose, digging for gold. Rarely do they actually pick up a tissue to get rid of the booger.  They still call me to wipe their butts when they poop, and while I'm wiping them, they find it necessary to describe the size, shape, and color of their poop. They try to get away with not washing their hands after going to the bathroom because they are too busy making a mess playing with their toys. Trust me, I'm constantly reminding them that they can't do any of the above when they are in school. I see a lot of phone calls from school in my future!

These are just some of the joys of having lots of boys that I have experienced so far. I'm sure I will have plenty more to write about as the babies get bigger. However, all four of them are Mama's Boys, and I wouldn't trade that for anything, even less boogers around the house!

My boys ready for a preseason Ravens game

Poop Training Trials and Tribulations

Trouble has been potty trained for months, since before Superchunk was born. He's great about peeing on the potty, tells us when he has to go, doesn't have accidents, loves underwear, etc. Really for as much trouble as he causes, I was surprised at how quickly he was trained. Pooping is a whole different story. For the life of me, I could not get him to poop on the potty. Buster has way more patience than I do, and he is much more laid back. He has sat in the bathroom on a little stool with Trouble for hours waiting for him to poop. Finally, he went on the potty about a month or so ago. I swear, Buster sounded like he was coaching Trouble through labor the way he was talking to him about pushing the poop out. Since the first time, Trouble has pooped on the potty a total of five times. I know this because there are five stickers on the chart. However, he has not only pooped five times since then. He has pooped in his underwear a ton of times. He has pooped in his Pull-Up a ton of times. And best of all, he has pooped on the floor. I'll get to that in a second.

Every time I think we're making some progress in the pooping department, Trouble proves me wrong. We will be so excited, get him a prize, put a sticker on the chart, praise him, make it the biggest event in the world when he goes on the potty. But then, the next day or that same night, or whenever he has to go again, he'll revert back to going in his pants. Such a letdown. We look for all the signs of him having to go and get him on the toilet as soon as we see them. And he sits and sits and sits. Usually, once he goes, he's good for a couple days. I think he stores it all up because he doesn't want to deal with having to sit on the potty.

Last Friday morning he came in our room and said his tummy hurt. We knew it meant he had to go, so I put him on the toilet and sat with him. We sat and sat and sat until the other kids started asking for breakfast. I put his underwear and shorts on and took him down for breakfast. After the kids ate, he said, "My tummy feel all better", so he went downstairs to play. While I was cleaning up the kitchen, he came upstairs and said, "Something's wrong with me.". I asked him what was wrong, thinking he hurt his leg or foot, and he said, "There's poop in my Wall-E underwear.". All that time we spent on the potty, and he went downstairs by the train table and pooped in his pants! (He has two pooping spots in the house, the train table in the basement, and next to his bed) I got him cleaned up and dressed and figured that was it for a couple of days. That night after dinner, we were all in the basement watching 'Wipeout', and Trouble was playing with Curly. Pirate was next to me, and I asked him if he farted because I smelled the smell. When he said no, I looked across the room at Trouble who covered his face with his hands. He had taken a dump in his underwear AGAIN, and in the same room as the entire family! He didn't even run off to try to do it in private or anything. Must be somethin' about that train table.

Buster looked up some training tips online that night, and one of the tips was to have the child walk around with no pants or underwear on. It said it could take a few days, but they will eventually have to go, and they'll use the potty . Apparently they like the security of the poop going right into their diaper or underwear and they are scared to let it fall into a potty. I don't get it, and I don't remember that with Princess or Pirate, but Trouble is way different than they ever were. So, we tried it. The boy went bottomless all day Saturday. He's not to the point of wearing underwear overnight yet, although he wakes up dry every morning. I guess this is laziness on my part, because I don't want to change pee sheets. He wears a Pull-Up to bed. Saturday night, Buster put the big kids to bed while I gave Superchunk his bottle. Buster stayed upstairs for a little while, and I heard him yell, "You have got to be kidding me!". Trouble got out of bed and crapped in his Pull-Up. After walking around half-naked all day, and pooping twice the day before, he went right as soon as he had pants on. But what can you do? Try again the next day.

Trouble walked around the house (thankfully we don't go anywhere when it's 500 degrees out) sans bottoms all of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. We did put a Pull-Up on him at bedtime, but even for naps he slept with no bottoms. I'm pretty sure any other kid would have a problem with this, but he did not. He didn't poop. Yesterday was the 4th of July, and we were having family over, so we knew he needed to wear pants. But I decided to have him wear shorts with no underwear. That way, if he pooped, it wouldn't be caught in something, but would fall on the floor. More work for clean-up, but I figured we should at least try it. When it was time for a nap, he kept coming out of his room because we had company. Finally he laid down and looked like he was going to sleep. I was just about to feed the baby when Trouble came running out of his room again and said "Something fall down in my room.". I thought he pulled his curtains down (regular occurrence) so I ran upstairs to put them back up on the wall. The curtains were still up. I asked him what fell, and he pointed around the corner next to his bed. Before I looked, I thought he had pulled down his floor lamp. He said, "That turd just fall right out my shorts.". Sure enough, there was a turd on the floor, right next to his bed, in his usual pooping spot. And he was freaked out. It scared him that the poop fell onto the floor. Buster dumped the turd and cleaned Trouble, and I cleaned the carpet. Trouble took a nap, and when he woke up he kept talking about the poop on his floor. It really bothered him.

Later in the afternoon, Trouble told Buster his tummy hurt and he had to poop. He said he wanted to sit on the potty to go. This was HUGE for us! Where he has pooped on the potty before, he has never told us he wanted to sit on it and go. He sat down, told Buster to leave the bathroom, and he pooped! He even said my favorite words, "DADDY, I'm DONE!!". He said he didn't want to poop on the floor anymore. He said the turd on the floor scared him. This is major progress! I don't know if he's poop trained for good, as it's only 24 hours later. Today he's wearing shorts without underwear again, and I keep reminding him that he has nothing on to catch the poop if he has to go. He may not go for a day or two, but hopefully he will tell us again and use the potty!

Trouble stories

Having Trouble, I now understand why so many things have been invented. Did anyone see Modern Family when they went to Disneyland and Lily was on a leash? I totally get it. We have a runner too. There are little child safety tabs on our windows that let the window only be opened a certain height so a child can't push the screen and fall out the window. I get it. We have a lock at the top of our front door. I get it. Child safety locks on cars, buckles on carseats, buckles on carts, gates at the top of stairs... those are mainly used for the safety of a child. For Trouble, they're used as restraint, to keep him in the cart, in the carseat, down the steps, in the car. Here are a few Trouble stories from the past week.

When my kids are playing together, I hear, 'Mommy, Trouble is doing ____' (something bad), or 'Trouble is going to throw ____ at me', or 'Trouble is climbing on the _____' about 100 times. To be totally honest, I ignore them a lot because they all tattle on each other. Usually what I hear when they are playing outside is, 'Trouble threw the ___ over the fence'. Yesterday it was his juice cup over one side of the fence, the basketball into the other neighbor's yard, and a dump truck over the back fence. Princess climbed over for the truck, and I lifted Pirate over to get the things from our neighbors' yards. (Our neighbors probably hate us.) A few minutes after everything was recovered from over the fence, Princess and Pirate both started yelling for me. Princess was holding onto Trouble, who was halfway up the fence. So, the two year old can climb the fence. Pirate would never attempt to climb the fence at almost five years old, but Trouble is doing it at 2. I shouldn't be surprised. He's been a climber as long as he's been walking. He was the first of the kids to climb out of the crib.  He was climbing onto the dining room table  grabbing the chandelier when he was not even 2. I guess I never thought about the fence though. I figured he was safe in our back yard. We even have a padlock on the gate because we thought he might eventually open the gate to escape. There's really no stopping the climbing. Hopefully he outgrows it or gets bored with it.

It's never a good sign when your kid comes up to you and says, "Can I have a wipe?", especially when your child is Trouble. He always does something bad at the most inopportune times too. This particular occasion was while I was feeding 5 his bottle. Trouble came up the steps holding out his hand asking for a wipe. In my experience, this is usually a sign that there is a "bid dween booder (big green booger) on his hand that needs to be wiped off. Silver lining - at least he's not eating them. With a kid like Trouble you have to look for the positive in all situations. Anyway, this was not a big green booger on his hand. His hand had melted chocolate all over it. Only it wasn't melted chocolate. Or pudding. Or any sort of food. It was indeed poop. On his hand. This gives a whole new meaning to Poop Hand. I have no clue why, but he had stuck his hand in the back of his Pull Up after pooping in it. It was so incredibly gross. I had to stop feeding 5 and clean scrub Trouble's hand, cut his nails, and scrub his nails with a nailbrush to make sure there was no poop left hiding anywhere.  I don't understand why he refuses to poop on the potty.

Yesterday it was raining all day. It was really humid, and although it wasn't hot out, the air had that sticky feeling to it. Normally I'd turn the air conditioning on in this kind of weather, but our A/C wasn't working right. (A sweet $400 later and it's fixed.) Anyway, I had all the windows open as well as the sliding door that leads to the deck. Trouble barely napped, which always sucks for me because I'm getting ripped off of my break from him. I sat down at the kitchen table to eat lunch in the 3 spare minutes I had. My husband called so I could fill him in on the A/C situation, and while I was talking to him, I saw something out of the corner of my eye on the deck. It was Trouble. Standing on the deck. In the rain. With no shoes on. I didn't even hear him open the screen door and walk outside, and I was only 5 feet away. He was just outside to see if it was raining, is his explanation.

These are only a few recent stories about Trouble, and they have all taken place in the past week. There are many more, and I have a feeling tons more are in my future.

Favorites of the week

Quotes

"When I grow up, I'm going to marry Princess." - Pirate when he sees Princess in her First Communion dress.

"Ew, Pirate. That is so gross. You can't marry your sister." - Princess reacting to the above statement.

"I hided my ninjas from Trouble. But I hided them too good. I can't find them anywhere." - Pirate

"You can come down from timeout, Pirate, but you can't throw your place mat on the floor anymore!" - Trouble letting Pirate out of timeout, but it had nothing to do with a place mat.

"My teacher was at school today. I guess she didn't have her baby anymore." - Pirate after his teacher came back from maternity leave.

Other happenings

Cleaning poop off of the kitchen floor after changing a poop filled Pull-Up. It was also on my arm and Trouble's legs and foot. Needless to say, we had an emergency bath at 9:30 pm and lost a pair of pajamas. I don't clean poop off of clothes.

Watching Trouble dance to "I'm Sexy & I Know It" when it came on Pandora, and beingimpressed/embarrassed that he knew a lot of the words.

Seeing Princess ride her bike all on her own, finally! (She only hit two signs and a post.)

Donkey swiping Trouble's juice cup when Trouble wasn't looking, drinking the entire cup, and both of them crying at the same time because the juice was gone.

Catching Trouble running around the basement after taking off his pants for no apparent reason.

Donkey sticking his fingers in our noses. He hasn't learned that you can't pick your friend's nose.

Trouble was scratching his butt and I told him to stop. He proceeded to start singing "Scratchy my butt hole" to the tune of "Frosty the Snowman". I can't make this stuff up!

Never a dull moment in this house of chaos!

Poop Hand

It never fails. Every time the little boys actually take naps after lunch and I just sit down to feed the baby, Pirate announces, "I just have to go poop real quick." and runs for the bathroom. He's 4 1/2 but I still wipe his butt. I guess he needs to learn how to do it before kindergarten. I can't imagine teachers wiping butts in elementary school. I sure as hell wouldn't have back in my other life when I was a teacher. It's not that I don't want him to wipe his own butt, it's just that he doesn't get it clean. Then he walks around digging at his butt all day because he has "itchy butthole". (His name for it, not mine.) He also sharts more when he wipes his own butt. So, to make things easier, I just wipe him for now. But he seems to have to poop every time I'm feeding the baby in the afternoon. I'm also usually watching my soap at the same time, so I double don't want to get up to wipe him. Luckily when he says he has to poop real quick, he's right. He's in and out of the bathroom. I just have to pause my show (most importantly!), put the baby down, go wipe his butt, wash both our hands, then pick up where I left off. So, this happened today with Pirate (1).

Shortly after, Trouble came downstairs to tell me that he couldn't take a nap today. I'm thinking he's about to give up naps which will make me cry when the day comes. That 1-2 hours a day when Trouble sleeps is the most peaceful time of my day. Today, I just sent him downstairs to rest on the couch with Pirate. To my surprise, he did rest, just didn't sleep. A little later, when he would normally wake up, I took him to the bathroom to pee and changed him from his Pull Up back into his underwear. He went back to playing and was actually behaving himself. When 5 started crying in his swing, I realized that he had pooped, and because he was in the swing, the poop had squished up his back onto his onesie (2). (Another onesie bites the dust because I don't scrub poop off of clothes) Changing a poopy onesie is a delicate task. You must very carefully stretch the hell out of it to not get poop all over the baby's back and head. This particular poop also required 5 being turned over onto his stomach so that I could wipe the excess poop off of his back. He had already had a bath this morning, and unless it's an extreme emergency, I don't bathe one kid more than once in a day.

When Donkey woke up from his nap, I could smell poop from the hallway (3). I knew it was going to be a good one. But his poops are tricky. Some of the worse smelling ones are the most compact and easy to clean. I was hoping for one of those. I didn't get my wish. This diaper was full front to back with gross, mashed poop. He had poop up the front, all over his balls and dong (as my boys refer to their boy parts... again, not the name I would use for it). I always give Donkey a toy to hold while I change him. It keeps him from squirming around and trying to get off the changing table. So, while I'm holding his legs back with my left hand, I'm wiping his butt with my right hand, all the while holding my breath because the smell could make me barf all over the place. Suddenly, the toy he's holding isn't good enough, and in a split second he throws it on the floor and reaches down and sticks his hand right on his poop covered dong. He now has Poop Hand. I had to maneuver around everything and wipe his hand off, then go back to wiping his butt, and he sticks his hand down there again. More Poop Hand. I don't have enough hands to hold down his hands and hold his legs back, and before I can even react to wipe his hand again, he grabs my hand that's holding his legs. Now we both have Poop Hand. To make it worse, I had to make his hand a priority over my own because I didn't want him touching anything else, or God forbid, putting his hand in his mouth. He didn't, and I was able to clean his hand off, wipe my own hand, and use my arm to hold his legs back and not allow his hand around to his diaper. My husband came in then and we decided Donkey just needed a bath at that point. As soon as my husband took over, I ran to the bathroom to wash and wash and wash my hands. I do not enjoy having Poop Hand.

After we recovered from this incident and Donkey was clean, Princess yelled up the steps, "Trouble pooped in his underwear!" (4). I asked him if he did, and of course he said no. I told him to come up so I could check, and to my delight, he came upstairs and went right over to Daddy so he could check him. My husband said it wasn't a huge mushy one, just a few turds, so he took him upstairs. I told him to hurry up because those turds have a way of falling out of Trouble's underwear and on more than one occasion I have found turds on the floor. While he was changing him, I heard my husband say, "Stop it, Trouble, stay still. Oh, come on... now  I have poop on my hand!". He ended up with Poop Hand too!

Later on, Princess went running up the steps with a book yelling that she had to poop (5). Thankfully she takes care of her own business. We had enough Poop Hand for one day!

Adventures in Potty Training - Round 3

Trouble is doing really well with using the potty. I am completely amazed, just because of how different he is from his big brother and sister. They both got trained pretty easily, around 2 1/2. I thought based on how he acts, he'd probably be around 13 before he was out of diapers. He's definitely not near being out of diapers yet, but he has worn underwear for a few hours at a time with no accidents. I am actually the one that is more on the lazy side of the training. I have been so exhausted with carrying around #5 that sometimes I just put diapers on Trouble to not have to take him to the potty. It's bad, I know. But potty training is exhausting. When he does sit on the potty, he jumps back and forth between the little potty chair and the big toilet as many times as possible. I either stay right in the bathroom with him, or I walk into the other nearby rooms but check on him every few seconds. Otherwise, this happens.
1. He drops little Thomas trains into the toilet.
2. He unrolls the toilet paper all the way.
3. He pulls all the toddler wipes out of the package and throws them around the bathroom.
4. He throws various objects from around the bathroom into the tub.
These have all happened, in a matter of minutes, with me being in the room right next door.
When he does sit still to use the potty, he has to hold at least one little toy (usually Charlie the train from Thomas). And he sings. He starts off by singing Old MacDonald. But the other day he transitioned from that into a very cute version of Rolling in the Deep by Adele. I thought the farm song/Adele combo sungy by a 2 year old was very well done!
Round 3 (for the third child) is going to be a long road, but at least we're off to a decent start.

A sneaky little nugget

This story is from a while ago, but I just remembered it today. Like I said, there are a lot of stories from the 4 months where I forgot about this blog!
Sometimes when Donkey poops, it's just these little rabbit like turds. You know, like little balls of poop. Other times, it's a major, huge, full -to- the -brim diaper. Trouble and Donkey share a room. Usually they will nap at the same time. And almost every afternoon when they are done their naps, their room smells like poop, to the point that I can smell it before I even open the door. On this particular day, Trouble had a huge poopy diaper that I changed and sent him on his way, to terrorize the other kids. Then I went to change Donkey. He had the little ball turds in his diaper. I cleaned him up, put on diaper cream and a fresh diaper, and we were on our way. I took him downstairs for his afternoon bottle. While I was feeding him, I still smelled poop. I checked his diaper, and it was clean. But I couldn't get over the poop smell. Something was off. I let him finish his diaper and sat him up to burp him. As I was patting his back, I felt it. I felt a lump on his back. I looked down the back of his onesie, and sure enough there was a little tiny turd stuck between his shirt and his back. I was thoroughly grossed out. Apparently when I lifted his butt to put on the new diaper a sneaky little ball turd rolled out of the diaper and into his onesie. So there you have it, the story of the sneaky little nugget.