I don't want to complain a lot about the challenges of having three young children but some things need to be shared. If nothing else, I will remember this post next time this particular challenge arises and laugh to myself instead of screaming to myself.
One of the most frustrating parts of my day is Flora's potty time . . . her poopy potty time to be specific. She likes to get the most out of her poopy potty time. She KNOWS that she has my attention (I can't say that it's undivided attention but at least MOST of my attention is focused on her) and she draws the process out as long as possible. If she were my only child I wouldn't mind whiling away the hours in the bathroom with her, but it's not exactly the mother-daughter bonding experience that she might want it to be. Here's how the scenario usually plays out:
Flora runs to the bathroom shouting, "I'm goin' poo-poo, Mommy!" with Scout running behind her shouting, "Poo-poo, Mommy!" Invariably, I am in the middle of feeding Timber so I haul the two of us off the chair and hurry to the bathroom to supervise and assist. Flora gets herself onto the potty with minimal, if any, help from me and begins her task. Meanwhile, Scout throws toys into the bathtub, pulls the toilet paper off the roll, shuts the door and turns off the light, attempts to wipe Flora, sticks his hands into the extra potty chair, crawls between my legs over and over, and generally wreaks havoc the entire time we are in the bathroom. Occasionally I am Mean Mommy and shut him out of the bathroom but then he just gets his little feelings hurt, so usually it's all four of us in the bathroom waiting on Flora to finish pooping. The really frustrating thing is that she is usually finished within a minute or two of sitting on the potty, but she just enjoys the situation so much that she insists she's not done yet and won't let me wipe her. So, Flora is blissfully seated on her throne (haha--couldn't resist), Scout is getting into everything, I am trying to corral Scout with one-hand and convince Flora she is done (although bribery is always more effective than verbal persuasion), and Timber is finishing his meal, completely oblivious to the chaos. Also, I won't bore you with the details, but I will just say that washing hands while nursing is difficult. I should probably just start putting Timber down and letting him cry until we are done. Now that I think about it, the bathroom isn't the nicest place to have a meal, is it?
Can you understand why I dread this ten minutes of the day more than any other part? I can only imagine what will happen when Scout starts potty training. I may just send him and Flora into the bathroom together with a stack of flushable wipes and hope for the best.
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