The Not So Terrible Twos: A Look Back

Because I only started blogging a little late into my later-in-life momhood -- when the kids turned three -- I don't have as much of a grip on what, exactly, happened that second year of parenthood. But I'm jogging my memory today because that blur of a year shouldn't go by thoroughly unrecorded. After all, getting through a year of later-in-life parenthood is something of an accomplishment, especially so when parenting twin toddlers ... or so I rationalize. I have to give myself a pat on the back for getting through it, even though people do it all the time, because one thing I do recall is feeling distinctly like I wasn't going to make it.

It wasn't because the twos were terrible. They were just ... well, wearing. They were also wondrous and delightful, in some ways far more rewarding than the ones, which were all about mom and dad putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how sleep-deprived. Most of all, they were about changes, big and small, and always, always coming, so that just when you thought you kinda had this parenting thing down, something would come to send you right back into learning on the job. To steal an iconic I LOVE LUCY image, I spent much of Year 2 feeling like the candies were coming down the conveyor belt faster than I could box them.

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Not Exactly Kodak Moments

She's proud of herself that she wipes from front to back when she goes to the potty. She wants to show mommy how she does it. But when she finishes wiping, she sneezes ... and decides the toilet paper she's just wiped with, and hasn't yet flushed, makes a perfectly fine tissue with which to wipe her nose.

He's proud of himself that he can use the urinal at preschool. He wants to show mommy how he does it. He takes her into the bathroom there and whips it out ... neglecting to pull his underwear and pants out of range. He pees all over himself.

She learns about nail polish from a teacher at preschool and her new thing is getting her nails done, by mommy, nanny, the obliging babysitter. Not one to be left out, even though this is traditionally a girls' activity, he insists on getting his nails done too -- toenails included. The color he chooses? Black. My three-and-a-half-year-old son has unwittingly gone Goth.

We're rolling cookie dough into balls to make "thumbprint" cookies: the idea is to push your thumb down in the cookie's middle, creating a whole for jam. Daddy shows him which finger his thumb is; he happily joins in a rendition of"Where Is Thumbkin?," a song he knows since age one and a half. When presented with the ball of dough and asked to press down with his thumb, he pokes it with his pointer.

She sees daddy feeding jam straight from the makeshift pastry bag he's created out of a plastic bag, straight into her brother's mouth. She insists she wants to try the same thing. She gets the jam in her mouth, and spits it out onto the table where we've been working the dough.

He sneezes all over the dough.

I know what you're thinking: "You must be so proud."

Here's what I'm thinking: I've got great material with which to embarrass them someday at their weddings.

I even got the jam spitting on video.

What was the slogan back in the '70s? "Celebrate the moments of your life."

Though maybe I'm glad I didn't get footage of that tush-to-nose toilet paper moment.

Could It Be ... We're Diaper-Free?

I had given up hope they'd ever stop wearing diapers.

Despite all the nudging I'd gotten on potty training from friends and relatives and busybody strangers, I stuck to the plan: encourage, but don't push.

But it was the preschool teachers who took matters into their own hands, no doubt weary of changing a year's worth of diapers. Half the class was already trained when they clued me in, insisting Thing 1 and Thing 2 were dry all morning, and coveting other kids' Dora and Blues Clues underwear.

Usually Late Blooming Mom rails against rampant commercialism, marketing to toddlers, the Disney-ification of even the preschool set.

Not this time.

We'd already been making potty chairs and underwear available at home for many, many months, with only intermittent use.

But suddenly, peer pressure -- and the lure of cute theme underwear -- seemed to have kicked in.

So after a few choice on-line purchases from a site dedicated to potty-training products, theme underwear included, we sent them to school with underwear.

Within two weeks, they were wearing it every day (with a few rewards on the weekends -- they're bonkers for strawberry banana smoothies).

Within three weeks, they were willing to wear underwear at home too.

Of course, the accidents began.

Late Blooming Mom goes on record here to say she has never, ever, done so much laundry.

One weekend it seemed the washer and dryer were going round the clock. May the gods of Global Warming forgive me. (I promise I use earth-friendly, high-efficiency detergent). I should probably purchase carbon credits just for that weekend.

But now we're past the month mark, and visiting every bathroom in West Los Angeles.

They're all fascinating. Seat covers are cool. Flushing is too loud. Sinks with stools so kids can reach them (or step stools so Thing 1 can pee standing up and miss the rim) are the best. It's not unheard of for us to spend twenty minutes going potty in a restaurant. (One time we came back and our food was gone and we had to order it all again.)

The trips to the store to purchase new diapers have slowed to trickle. Yes, we still use a few -- pull-ups, that is, and only overnight. I'm too much of a softie to deprive Thing 1 and Thing 2 of their night-time sips of water, and they don't quite get that they can get up at night and use the potty if they need to go.

The money we're going to save going forward ... well, let's just say it's time to put some into the college fund.

And all my stress over when and how to potty train, and whether they'd ever, ever, ever really get there, has vanished like stormclouds after the rain.

Praised be the potty.

Now if only I can teach Thing 1 to improve his aim ...

"Good Job, Mommy!"

Here's how Thing 1 made my day the other day.

A little context first: to encourage my kids to use the potty, I often let them come into the bathroom with me when I need to use it.

Every time they have a successful potty session, I tell them, "Good job, ____" (I fill in the appropriate child's name).

So the other day, I was in the bathroom on the toilet, witnessed by my son.

When I got up, he peered into the toilet, verified that I had, in fact, successfully peed into it, and then declared emphatically, "Good job, Mommy!"

Then he flushed for me.

I am still cracking up thinking about it.

My friend Alan once told me, "The hardest thing about parenting is not to laugh."

Maybe my son is wondering what the heck I found so funny. But I really, truly, could not help myself.

Especially because I was just beating myself up over the fact that, at three and a couple of months, my kids are still wearing pull-ups and often getting them wet. While they seem fine with peeing into the potty once or twice a day, they see no reason for it to be their exclusive pee receptor. And while one kid manages to poop in the potty more and more often, the other still adamantly refuses to do that anywhere than in a diaper. It matters not how many of their peers at preschool are trained (about half), nor how many "Once Upon A Potty" or "Potty Power" video viewings I encourage. Nor how many cute pairs of underwear I've bought them. (Thing 2 likes to admire herself in them in the mirror, but takes them off the minute she feels the urge, whereas Thing 1 pees in them moments after putting them on.)

A pause to note that one day, they will see this web post and sue me for inflicting childhood embarrassment (which I have no doubt will become a litigation-worthy offense one of these days).

But back to the point: I've been hard on myself for not having the time, energy and persistence to push the potty training, even though my pediatrician is adamantly against any training at all. "They'll decide when they're ready," he says. "You don't have to train them... and problems will result if you push." I know in my gut he's right. But when you see other kids doing it, and you imagine the convenience of diaper-free days, you can't help but want to hurry things along, and get frustrated when your kids aren't there yet.

Maybe that's why I was so happy about the "Good job, Mommy" moment.
After all, when was the last time in your day somebody was nice enough to give you a pat on the back? Even if it's for something you've been doing since ... well, the day you said bye-bye diapers. Mastery is mastery, right?

It's enough to make me cut myself -- and the kids -- some slack on the potty training. They'll get there when they get there. And at the very least, my son is already one very sweet boy.

Why Can't Girls Pee Standing Up?

Really, there's no good way to explain this to a three-year-old. I told her it would be icky, and it would drip down her leg.

But still, she asks why.

Seems she's seen the boys do it in the unisex bathroom at preschool. Her brother has seen them too and is catching on, though he doesn't quite get the idea that you have to put the seat up first. (Ah, so this is where the whole seat up thing begins).

She likes to watch the boys pee standing up, though I've told her they need privacy, just like she does when she sits on the toilet. She asks for privacy now, which isn't a bad thing, considering she wasn't giving it to mom or dad, and really, was it too much to ask that we could have a few private moments on the porcelain throne?

Trips to the bathroom -- especially those at school, in restaurants, at the museum, in the mall -- have become interrogation sessions. Why do we need the seat liner? How many can I use? Why can't I have another ... and another ... and another? Can I pull on the toilet paper?

These sessions are marathon in length when you've got two toddlers in the bathroom with you at the same time. It does little good to explain that people are waiting to use the bathroom, and we've got to hurry. Washing up and ripping paper towels out of the dispenser can take ten, fifteen minutes. And then there's all the lifting: putting them on the toilet, taking them off, lifting them up to the sink, or to reach the paper towels. If there are no towels, there's the scary, noisy dryer with which to contend.

I've learned there's one thing I can count on, after successfully completing one of these sessions and getting the kids back outside, into the car, and strapped into their car seats. Just as I'm about to pull out of the parking lot, Thing 1 or Thing 2 will invariably announce, "I have poop."

And back we troop.

To those waiting to use the bathroom we're in, I apologize. But honestly, there's nothing I can do, save maybe posting a sign on the door that gives fair warning: We could be days.

I realize one day they will get the hang of this, and bathrooms will become a little less fascinating. I don't want to rush their toddlerhood.

But can't that day come just a little bit sooner?

The Longest Day

The other night, I took Thing 1 and Thing 2 to Koo Koo Roo, an inexpensive chicken restaurant chain, for dinner right after picking them up from school.

They're always excited to go out to dinner, though Koo Koo Roo is one of the rare places I dare take them these days, given their proclivity to stand up in restaurant booths, run around the tables dancing, and in general, behave in ways that would make Emily Post resign her post.

Dinner actually went okay, despite a few overly rowdy, loud-voiced, gleeful (on their part) and mortifying (on mine) moments, and their insistence on ringing the big bell by the door that you're supposed to ring if you've had a great time, but which annoys staff and customers alike. We'd even managed to get out of the ladies room after a semi-reasonable ten minutes (both kids had insisted on using the toilet, rolling out too much toilet paper, changing their pull-ups, washing hands with too much soap, and pulling repeatedly on the paper towel dispenser). I was counting myself lucky, and considering the excursion a success, when we left the restaurant.

But once inside the parked car, it all went south.

Thing 1 announced he had pooped in his pull-up and needed a change, clearly not caring at all that he'd had every opportunity to poop in the bathroom just moments ago. Thing 2 refused to get in her car seat -- yet again -- even though we were but a three minute drive from home, where I could easily and quickly attend to Thing 1's needs.

Late Blooming Mom tried in vain to convince Thing 2 to get in her seat. There was car door slamming and there were raised voices -- hers and mine. Tempers were lost. Finally I had no choice but to troop back into the restaurant bathroom and have yet another marathon session. Thing 1 successfully cleaned and changed, we trooped back to the parked car ...

...whereupon Thing 2 once again refused to get in her seat.

Late Blooming Mom had already lost it once. And as the clock crept closer and closer to bedtime, the battle to control my temper was already lost.

I'd worked hard all day and tried to give my kids a treat by taking them out. This was how I was rewarded. I realize, of course, that's not at all how my three-year-olds saw it. But battle fatigue had set in.

After asking her to be a big girl and make me proud, after counting to 5 repeatedly, after an exasperated attempt to force a thirty-pound toddler into a seat, and after calling daddy, asking him to come and pick up Thing 2 because I was at my wits' end, Thing 2 twisted her foot in a seat strap. The injury was nothing at all serious, but it smarted enough to cause her to cry and to finally give in. She'd scared herself.

We drove home and I turned both kids over to daddy for their baths, unable to face them again until their much-delayed bedtime, when I -- and they -- were calm.

I hauled out the parenting books again in the aftermath of what seemed a never-ending day. I read all about how you can't give in, you can't reward the limit-testing kid with negative attention, and how most of all, you're not supposed to lose your temper. You've got to manage your own anger or you're modeling bad behavior, not to mention playing into their drama.

The books are right. But in practice, they're hard to put into practice.

Again I am confounded by the fact that being a later-in-life mom hasn't given me any more patience than a twenty-something mom ... in fact, because I get tired more easily and it's harder to recharge my batteries, I may have less.

I also wonder about the differences in temperament and gender: so often it's my daughter doing the limit-testing these days, and I wonder if it'll always be thus. The kid makes it harder for herself. But I am doing her no favors, I know, by not figuring out ways to short-circuit the drama before it blows up.

My friend Melanie, reading an exasperated email, writes to me about how she responds when her three-year-old acts up. "Let me know when you are ready to listen," she says, then leaves the room. I'm going to try that advice when the tantrums happen at home. But I'm not sure what to do when you've got two toddlers in the car you've gotta get home, and one is throwing a fit about a car seat that she's required by law to sit in.

For starters, I'm going to forgive myself for losing it. I have a feeling the kids are more resilient than I suspect, and watching mom lose it is not going to scar them for life. Then I'm going to pray to the patience Gods for more. I'll vow totry to enforce limits quickly without negotiating -- the bad habit/crutch of educated parents turning kids into mini-lawyers -- and hope with all my heart that Thing 2 will someday soon be a little easier to manage as a result ... or at least as a result of getting a bit older.

Fingers crossed.