How to Potty Train Triplets in 3 Days

Well folks, I'm baaa-aack! Like the new design? Yeah, it isn't worlds different from the last one (which you don't remember because I've been gone so long) but it took me seven hours to get it to look like this. Yes, I said SEVEN. HOURS. Why? Because I am a writer not a damn blogger/computer/HTML techie person and the changes I wanted to make were IMPOSSIBLE (for me, not for the many, many other mommies with blogs the way I want mine to look) so I gave up. Now, I normally wouldn't be so shameless about my failures but in this case I don't care. That's because this blog re-design failure comes on the heels of a monumental Mommy success ----

THE TRIPLETS ARE POTTY TRAINED!!!!!

Yup, just shy of 28 months old, I looked those three beautiful little people in the eyes and said "Mommy can't afford this #$%^ anymore! Every time I change one of you little buggers, I imagine I am wiping your arses with twenty dollar bills! You have no choice in growing bigger so Mommy has to get you new-to-you clothes and shoes but you do have a choice as to where you put your poop and pee. No, not on Aunt Tricia's off-white carpet! I cannot pass off yet another stain as "chamomile tea." I don't even drink tea, damn it. Here is the potty, here is a pair of underwear, let's git 'er done!"

And done we did git 'er. Morning number four dawned early on three dry bottoms and off to preschool they went skipping along in big kid underwear.

Now, normally I am not the unasked for advice giver type but potty training toddlers is one area where I will make an exception. So, here it is, a condensed guide on potty training triplets in 3 days.

First, you must gather your materials. Here is your shopping list:

Potty seat (1 or 2)
Stand alone toddler potty (at least 1)
Garbage bags (3 dozen 5-gallon or larger size - preferably the pre deodorized kind)
Dishwashing gloves (half-dozen of a different color than dishwashing gloves you actually use to do dishes so you don't mix the two kinds up because you will never want these dishwashing gloves to accidentally end up anywhere near actual dishes ever, ever, ever. EVER.)
Resolve carpet cleaner (2 large bottles)
Pine-sol (1 large bottle)
Lysol disinfectant spray (6 or 7 hundred bottles)
Laundry detergent (biggest damn jug you can haul out of the store without crippling yourself)
Toddler underwear (18 pairs festooned with your children's favorite fictional characters - Elmo, Dora, Spongebob, etc.)
dog leash (2)
Do-Not-Disturb sign (1 homemade or swiped from your local no-tell motel)
rags, old towels, paper towels, newspaper sheets, sponges (a shitload)
Candy (as much as you'd find in the average trick-or-treat bag in the pre-razors-in-apples days - yeah, that much)
One of these.
A few of those.
Potty training books and DVDs (an armful)


Second, make a few preparations before the first day.

1. Send your spouse and your non-potty training children and pets to a neighbor, relative's house, or foreign country;

2. Stock the fridge with already prepared or quick-to-prepare meals to last three days;

3. Fish out the telephone number of your old therapist and program it into your speed dialer;

4. Find Jesus (no, silly, not the guy on the cross. I mean your friendly neighborhood handyman, someone willing to haul things like rugs, couches, office chairs and your dignity from your house to the local garbage dump.)

5. Find Jesus (yeah, now I'm talking about the guy on the cross.)

Finally, you are ready to start.

Step 1: Before the trainees wake up on the first day, gather all your potty training advice books and DVDs into one neat pile. Get one garbage bag. Insert books and DVDs into garbage bag. Take bag out to the curb. If it is not garbage collection day, take bag into your backyard and carefully, very carefully, set the sucker on fire. If you can still hear the advice of those so-called experts rattling around your brain, stand with your back flat against one wall of your house. Lean forward slightly at the shoulder then quickly and forcefully whip your head backward. Repeat until expert advice is ... poof ... gone.

Step 2: Close all windows. Draw all shades. Hang the Do-Not-Disturb sign on your front door.

Step 3: Wake the trainees and dress them in their new underwear. Make a big freakin' deal about what big kids they are. Clap outlandishly and speak in a high pitched, loud voice such as you might use on a deaf person or immigrant. Or a deaf immigrant. Then gently draw your children to your bosom and remind them that Elmo and Dora and Spongebob are their friends. And we don't drown our friends, do we? No, we don't. And we don't smother our friends in smelly and toxic goo either, do we? No, no. We don't do that. Then take the little cherubs to the bathroom and demonstrate the use of the potty.

Step 4: Do underwear checks every 20 minutes. Check their fronts for pee, clap and dance and hand them a piece of candy if you find it dry. Check their backsides for poop, clap and dance and hand them a piece of candy if you find it poopless. (Make sure you have done Step 2 completely because if your neighbors peek in a see what you are doing, social services and the sheriff's office won't give a hoot about your Do-Not-Disturb sign.) If you find their underwear less than dry or not completely poopless, remind them how we do NOT treat our friends.

Step 5: Five minutes after underwear check, march them to the potty and have them sit. Reward production with more candy. (I did one piece of candy for a pee, two for a poop. And I did a half a piece for a fart because I wanted to acknowledge good intentions and encourage effort but hey, your kids your decision.)

Step 6: On the second day, repeat steps 4 and 5 steadily increasing the time between each crotch inspection and each toilet sitting session. Steal a moment during these longer stretches of down time to contemplate your newly forming, different definition of "potty trained." (Hint: Yes, you still have to buy a few pull-ups. Yes, you will still occasionally find a child happily stewing in his own filth. Yes, they will experiment with placement of excrement in various non-Mommy approved excrement receptacles.)

Step 7: On the third day, take your trio out to a public place so that they understand this using the toilet business is not just something fun to do at home. Take along the potty seat and the dog leashes. Tie the two kids who aren't using the toilet to something sturdy - like the pipes underneath the sink. What? Fine, forget the leashes. Tell them all to pull down their pants and underwear. Toddlers with pants around their ankles are slower moving and maybe, just maybe you might make it out of there without them finding "toys" in the tampon disposal container or playing splish-splash in the toilet in the next stall or crawling into an occupied stall to make a new friend. Maybe. But I doubt it.

Step 8: Once the kiddoes have gotten the basics down, you can open a window, let the shades up and welcome the light of a new day in your lives. A day where 95% of your waking hours will be spent in a bathroom. A day where you philosophize about the mysteries of a universe that can create toddlers with the instinct to be repulsed by the eating of green beans but not by the playing with their own poop...or their siblings' poop. A day where the cry "Uh-oh, Mommy" coming from the backseat of a minivan hurtling down a highway takes on different, special meaning. Yes, it is a new day. A newer, inexplicably wetter, smellier day.

Congratulations, you've potty trained triplets!