Why I Hate Potty Training

We have baseballs on the doorknobs in our house because we have twins that can get into things they shouldn't. This is a little harder than having one child because you just can't always have your eyes on both, and we aren't going to risk a stomach pump because they got into some cleaning supply. The girls are too little to open the doors, but not too little to go through a door left ajar. Then there is the technology upgrade they were all born with. It is like all four of them were built with scanners. Every time they go into a room I swear they take 2 seconds to identify what isn't the same anymore and run to exploit it--remote left out, door open, cup low enough to be reached, something shiny over there hanging over the edge of the counter...

So on to the main event. We put out the potty chair. Nicholas gets it; he leaves it alone. Benjamin thinks it's a new toy and runs all over the house with it, tears it apart, beats his brother with it. Now they are fighting over the potty chair. Nice. Now the girls are fighting over it. Except, let's be honest, they are still putting everything in their mouths--ewwwww.

We put the potty chair in the bathroom behind the door. Out of sight, out of mind. Not helpful.

We come to a hybrid solution. We take the baseballs off the bathroom door and use the doughnuts in the toilet and start taking them to the toilet every two hours, but if they feel inclined they can get in the door themselves, which helps because now we can ask them to go wash their hands and just check up on them in the end. Now they get in the bathroom by themselves and need to wash their hands like obsessive-compulsives, which maybe they are. I don't know. They always leave the door open, which would be awesome because who wants their 2-year-old closed up in the bathroom? Oh yeah, I do. Because now the girls are in the toilet water with their hands. Nice.

The boys now have the skills to get naked by themselves entirely. And they use those skills--to poop on the patio when playing outside.

And then there is this. Nicholas is upstairs yesterday and needs to poop he says. Ben is on the potty that I hauled out because the doughnut is missing. Doughnut is missing? Yes. Missing. Crap. Someone must have hauled it off. Nicholas needs it, and I got nothing. We go downstairs to the other toilet. And I tell him to do his thing, and I run back upstairs to check on Benjamin because I trust him maybe a little less. The girls have gotten in the bathroom are falling in the empty tub, climbing the stool to the stool, and Ben is still trying to potty because he is convinced that he needs to even though his training pant was soaked when I took it off (heaven help me if I hadn't put that out of the girls' reach). I grab the girls, get them out of the bathroom, shut Benjamin in the bathroom (yes, shut Benjamin in the bathroom by himself. The two-year-old is shut in the bathroom because that is the safest option at the moment.) Run downstairs leaving the girls screaming upstairs. Nicholas didn't make it. He pooped on the foot stool he was supposed to use to get up to the potty, which he never actually uses preferring instead this weird monkey mount of the toilet from the side using hands and feet.

I have no idea why every one is so excited about potty training; I can accomplish 4 diaper changes in 4 minutes anywhere and be done with it.