Heather’s Top 10: Reasons Potty Training Twins is Really Hard
- It is obvious, but sometimes (as is the case with this) the obvious is well worth stating: When you’re running as fast as possible to make it to the bathroom in time with one of them, the other one is on their own, unsupervised. Enough said.
- When you’re running as fast as possible to make it to the bathroom in time with the other one, you still haven’t had time to re-diaper the one who just went. Bambino without a diaper = accident.
- There are two bambinos/There are twice as many accidents.
- Twice the hand washing. There are several sub-categories here. a) bar soap: they try to eat it and since there are two of them it is twice the guidance/hassle/infuriation. b) pump soap: they desperately want to do it themselves but knock it over, get frustrated when they can’t pump it correctly, and when they can pump it correctly they pump out loads and loads of it all over the bathroom when you’re not monitoring closely enough, and since there are two of them it is twice the guidance/hassle/infuriation. c) water faucets: they insist on operating the water flow themselves, prefer it to be at full speed, and quickly get extraordinarily WET when you’re not monitoring closely enough –often requiring change of clothing, and since there are two of them it is twice the guidance/hassle/infuriation. d) hand-drying/towels: they like to play with the towels so if you’re not monitoring closely enough they attempt to soak the towels with water and suck the water out and basically do anything they can to avoid ending the hand-washing-ritual since they love any excuse to play with water, and since there are two of them it is twice the guidance/hassle/infuriation. e) skin moisturizer: our particular twins need much skin moisturizer so hand cream is necessary after hand washing… see above, “b)” re: pump soap.
- They are so very interested in the process, and like to watch each other pee so very, very much, that it is nearly impossible to keep the pee flow of the one going from flowing onto the one watching (see Exhibit A below).
- Since flushing is, of course, their favorite part, there is arguably more fighting over flushing than potty training is worth.
- Even though we have two identical potty seats they fight over who gets to sit on which potty seat when. And they fight over who gets to sit on the “big potty” when. There is arguably more fighting over who is sitting where when than potty training is worth.
- While they are fighting over who gets to sit on which potty when (and which book we’re going to read while on the potty), they inevitably get distracted. Bambino distracted = accident. There are two bambinos/There are twice as many accidents. Yes, I know, I already said that. It warrants saying twice. Believe me.
- Our reward system: one peanut m&m for each pee pee, one caramel-filled-hershey-kiss for each poopie. The chances of having double success during any given bathroom experience are very slim, thus chances are that only one bambino (not both) is getting a reward-treat for their achievement. Thus one is forced to tolerate having no treat while watching the other eat a treat. At age two watching your twin brother eat candy while you have none = crying meltdown/tantrum. There are two bambinos/There are twice as many crying meltdowns/tantrums.
- Given how OFTEN they actually go (or mistakingly think they need to go), and given how LONG the entire process takes (running to bathroom, taking off clothes & diapers, attempting to go, books, fighting, flushing, fighting, rewards, fighting, hand-washing, cleaning up accidents, re-diapering, re-dressing, re-directing to new activity, cleaning up/dealing with whatever happened with the unsupervised twin while you were in the bathroom with the other…), by the time you’re done with one bambino you usually have to immediately start again with the other. You could easily spend all day and night just going back-and-forth doing this whole process with the twins. THIS is arguably more exhausting than potty training is worth.
Potty training twins — yet another example of something that we constantly ponder around here: How do people do it with triplets??????
Exhibit A. Owen watches Kyle pee in the potty. Note “accident” — pee pee all over Kyle’s leg — that Owen is closely inspecting and Kyle is wiping from his leg with bare hand. What the photo does not show as clearly is that the “accident” was also all over the potty, the stool, the floor, and Owen’s feet.
Exhibit B. Now Kyle watches Owen pee in the potty. Note the concentration on the part of both boys, and that the pee pee is going straight into potty. Success! …But what the photo does not show as clearly is the meltdown/tantrum/fight that ensued immediately following this scene, when Kyle tried and tried but couldn’t pee, then announced “Mama my pee pee turned off,” Owen received his peanut m&m, and Kyle got none.
~~~Note: New P.S. to this post– A few people have emailed me to ask why we don’t just simplify things and have the boys pee sitting down. Here’s my explanation to the most recent email on this subject:
Oh, we did teach them to pee sitting down!!! Believe me! that would make *everything* so much easier. And that’s how most all boy toddlers pee. But… alas… again, in typical K & O fashion, they refuse to go with status quo. They INSIST on peeing standing up “like Papi”… and once they caught on to how Braydon does it (which did not take long — just one trip to the urinal in a public place and it was cemented in their heads)… well, so long then to sitting-down-peeing. Since then neither of them will sit to pee.We went to Black Rock, Connecticut this weekend to visit Beth, one of our bestest friends in the whole wide world. I’ve been friends with Beth since we were campers together one summer at camp when we were about 13 years old. For the most recent 11 years she’s been a dear friend of Braydon’s too. We’ve seen each other through lots of life. To sit with a glass of wine and talk about life with Beth has got to be one of my favorite things in the world to do. That was true when we were all struggling 23-year-olds in Boston, and it is just as true now that she’s a pastor and I’m a professor and Braydon’s a big-wig corporate IT management guy. Old friends are the best friends. It is so true.
And now that K & O are in the picture it is a whole new phase of life. The boys love Beth. She is like an aunt to them. And they let her know it… by smothering her with smiles and hugs and kisses, and by throwing terrible twos fits right in front of her. You know — aunts are not like friends… they get the privilege and the honor of seeing the best of the good and the worst of the bad!
Anyway, as far as road-tripping with twin two-year old boys go — the weekend was about as fantastic and perfect as possibly imaginable!
Beth spoiled us all. She took us on a walking tour of her charming neighborhood. She showed us her church. She fed us so many treats (she exposed the boys to Wispride spreadable cheese on crackers — which is now their new favorite hors’ doerves!). She lit a fire in her gorgeous fireplace. She gave the boys their new favorite possessions: cute cute cute stuffed-animal-fish. And she even played a Laurie Berkner Band CD for us!!! Wowsers, could it get any better? We might be making regular trips to Connecticut from now on…
The best part was we got to be at the ocean. On a sunny day, the New England coast in early November has got to be about as close to heaven as one can get.
Kyle with “Sister Kate” (so funny – this is what K & O call Kate, because she’s Jessica’s sister… it makes it sound like she’s a nun or something!! we get a big kick out of this!)
Owen & Kyle love baby Samantha… especially her bald head and her little ears!
K & O with the Kenty-Dranes
After such a busy whirlwind travel weekend, the boys were exhausted and waaaaay ready for bed at 7:00 tonight. They both fell asleep with their arms wrapped around their new cuddly fish, which they reminded us several times were “from BETH!” Our life is crazy, but it is crazy-good.
This week I’ve been thinking a lot about adoption because we’ve spent a lot of this week with our next-door-neighbors who have just brought home their two new children from India. It has gotten me thinking about some of the things people have said to me over the past couple of years about adoption. One person, a total stranger who approached me in the grocery store one day to ask about Kyle and Owen, said something to the effect of: “Well I could never do it, but I think adoption is great for people who have the guts to do it… Of course, I just hope that those parents know what they’re getting into!” My first thought was, “Hmmm… let’s see… does any parent ever know what they’re getting into?!” Those of us who are adoptive parents sometimes commiserate about this with each other– about how often biological parents say things to us that convey how they think they know so much more about what they are “getting into” than adoptive parents do, and about how often biological parents tell us that they are “too scared” to adopt because “you just never know what you might get.” Well, the truth is, that any parent could be thrown for a loop at any moment… whether that is because of some problem discovered at the birth of their child (or at the adoption of their child), or three months or years or decades down the road. No, we don’t know what we’re “getting into”… ever. That’s part of the miracle and joy and heart-break of it all… for all of us who are parents — biological and adoptive.
Many kids who are adopted out of orphanages come home very frail. They are often malnourished. They are often emotionally traumatized. They are in rough shape — medically, emotionally, and pretty much in every way. But, kids adopted out of orphanages are strong and resilient too. And, at least from what I have seen, that strength and resiliency far outweighs the frailty. Children who have survived life in an orphanage in a place like Port-au-Prince Haiti have a strength and a resiliency that is miraculous and inspiring and beautiful. And these children need a lot of healing too. Parents who adopt children from these places believe in their hearts and souls that they can heal these children.
When we first met Kyle and Owen on January 31, 2005 they were eight months old and frail and sick and severely malnourished. When we finally got them home and got them to our pediatrician she told us, point blank, that they would not have “made it” much longer there. She told us, with the most emotionally-neutral medically- scientific tone imaginable: “You have saved these children.” They had all sorts of vitamin and nutrient deficiencies. Their bellies were distended. Their cheeks were bloated. Their hair was falling out. Their skin was rashy. They were weak. Their eyes were glazed over. They were semi-unresponsive and developmentally delayed. They cried mournfully in the night and sometimes had night terrors. Braydon and I believed, and we told ourselves everyday, “We can heal these children.” Every parent who adopts in a situation like this believes that.
People who see Kyle and Owen now, and don’t know the whole story, would probably not ever imagine the journey that they’ve been on to get where they’ve gotten. Just scroll through this blog and what you see is two gorgeous, healthy, THRIVING boys. At their 2-year-old “well baby” check up with our pediatrician she told us, with tears in her eyes, that K & O were some of the “healthiest, most thriving” toddlers she has ever seen. She looked me in the eye, and said to me (with both of us welled up with tears), “Do you remember how they were when you first got them? Do you even remember?” I said, “Yes, I remember.” And she said firmly to me — doctor to mother — “You do know what you have done, right? You do know that you have saved these children?” And I just nodded because I was too choked up to even say, “Yes.”
I never forget. Kyle and Owen will not remember (which is good), but I will always remember. And hopefully, when my sons look back on their life, the good will outweigh the bad. That is the hope that every parent holds for their child.
For a couple of years now Braydon and I have had a Maya Angelou quote hanging smack in the middle of our bathroom mirror (we put it there because that is the one sure place we’ll see it every single day). The quote is this:
“Home can heal. There is healing in Home.”
Kyle and Owen, First Day Home, February 2005
Owen and Kyle, Second Day Home, February 2005
I just read Braydon’s post from this morning. It is true that this morning when the boys woke up we immediately realized that Kyle had gone all night with no diaper, and that it had been Braydon who got him ready for bed last night, and that our poor boy was soaked and chilled to the bone as the result of Braydon’s wrong-doing. But I just have to say: in defense of my husband — who is the best, and most intimately-involved-with-daily-hands-on-childcare, father I know — that this is not an example of “Parent Failure,” it is clearly an example of Parent Exhaustion (otherwise known as Working-Father-of-Twin-Two-Year-Olds-DELIRIUM).
A guy I know was saying how hard it is now that he has two kids in diapers at the same time – a really little one and bigger one.
We can commiserate, but our diaper management procedure goes something more like this: “Papi – it’s a biiiiiiiiiiig green pooooopie!” (delight in his voice) – his brother chimes in: “See it Papi?!?! See it!!!” and proceeds to attempt to climb up the side of the dresser to the top where we have the changing table while the other one starts kicking and from time to time hits the poopie diaper. Repeat for other boy.
Or another favorite – us: “Do you want to put your diaper on, on the floor or on the changing table” (it’s not worth it to fight this one). His response: “On the bed!!!” Repeat for other boy.
Another one of our norms (well, mine anyway, Heather is better about this than I am) is when Owen kicks me during diaper changes. If I am alone, this inevitably leads to Kyle crying since it takes me about 5 times as long to change Owens diaper when he’s kicking and I can’t get him up there to see the big green (or blue, or yellow, or red, or orange) poopie.
Occassionally we have a diaper failure. That typically means that quality control on the diaper went arwy, and diaper has ripped a little and the gel packs inside have come out – leading to a very wet bed and boy. And honey bunny, pillow, blankets etc.
And for the first time, yesterday, I entirely forgot to put a new diaper on Kyle before bed. That one is not diaper failure, that’s parent failure. Poor guy. He was so wet and cold, I feel so bad about it. Heather ran a bath for him and he got warmed up and clean.
Owen had to join him in the bath of course.
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