Party Pooper

I handle all areas of conflict and confrontation in my life the same way. I ignore them and hope they disappear. I’ve applied this Zen philosophy to what has been a grueling year long test of patience and wills for Laura and me. Indeed, potty training can be brutal. And, since we have twin girls, it is twice the fun. My girls have re-defined the phrase “going to the potty”. It now means a social excursion wherein they enter the bathroom, perch themselves high on the throne and then babble for hours to me because I am conveniently located on the bathroom floor waiting for the magic to happen.

We’ve tried everything from praise and rewards to arranging a Mayoral decree when there’s been a major breakthrough. Still they seem to be marching to their own drummers. And, these drummers need to go to every bathroom in the Northern Hemisphere. Whether we are in a restaurant, school, convenience store or church, one of them asks “Is there a potty here?” This begins the potty parade. Laura is the Grand Marshall. I have been banned from taking the girls to the men’s room since an emergency stop in 2006 when I received explicit instructions from Laura on proper procedure and threw out my back trying to hover my six year old over the commode. The child inadvertently touched the wall in the men’s room and was sent to the Brookhaven National Lab for decontamination. I recovered on the couch.

Oh how I long for the diaper days. Life was easier then. The kids were self contained, like astronauts. Now, we convoy to the bathroom before we go anywhere and as soon as we get to where we were going. And, most times we don’t make it out of the driveway before someone utters that dreaded phrase yet again.

Bedtime is another treat. They figured out that we would let them out of bed to use the bathroom. Laura and I haven’t slept since. (Unless you count the nap I took in the tub during the World Series).


I suppose they will eventually learn and we will look back on these years as the “good old days”. Until then I’m having the bathroom floor fitted for a queen sized bed.