Adventures in Yuck

When I first told people I was pregnant with my firstborn, more than a few of of my friends told me that my years of fostering orphan dogs had given me lots of preparation for what lay ahead being a first time parent. I want you to know that I nodded my head in agreement and thought, "Hmm, that's true, I DO know what it's like to care for things." I like to think of that period of time in my life as My Idiot Phase.

There are approximately two things that Fostering Dogs for 11 years has contributed to my parenting:

1). I continually refer to my children's pediatric doctor visits as "going to the vet."

and

2). I am not easily grossed out.

Note the word, "EASILY," as in, It takes a LOT to make me gag. That said, people, Potty Training is about to break me.

(ok, you can stop here if you need to. It's fine. Just beforewarned if you trudge on, don't be eating anything)

We are nearing the end of Week Two of OPERATION UNDERPANTS where in Hopper is not wearing diapers during the day. And I don't mean to make it sound worse than it is, it's actually going moderately well. Hop loves underwear. He doesn't care if they have anything fancy on them or what color, he does not care. He just likes his undies. He will pull them up to his chest so far that I kindof wince and have to stop myself from reminding him that I'd like grandchildren one day, but it's cute. He is alllll about the underpants. So, he tries to keep them dry and most of the time he will go potty at school. And for the most part will potty in his little potty at home. For the most part. Except the times when he doesn't.

I am not going to go into detail here, but suffice it to say that when he doesn't use the potty he will find some out of the way place to go about his business and you will walk into a room knowing that A DEPOSIT HAS BEEN MADE AND IT IS UP TO YOU TO FIND IT.

I know, doesn't seem that hard, does it. I'm not saying it's difficult to find the, ah, DEPOSIT. But it can get a little tricky with the toys laying around and then there's the forever flatulent dogs that often smell like poop themselves, so that can throw off the scent trail a little. And then there's the ALMOST WALKING BABY, that crawls everywhere and gets into EVERYTHING, who as it happens, occupies the same space, so you're under a bit of a time crunch to find it before he can and does what he normally does when he finds ANYTHING (including, but not limited to peanut butter sandwiches and dog noses) which is to grab, squish and flail everywhere shouting with glee which would be BAD BAD, SOOOoooo NOT GOOD. So yeah, there's a little pressure there.

So last night in the race to find IT I, uh, lost. I believe the word you're looking for here is: HORRIFYING (coming in just slightly ahead of E-COLI). Why yes, yes it was. I googled it, but apparently, you can't scrub babies with lye.

Again, no details here, just a quick permission note: You can totally bring this up to them when they're 16 and 18 and we're having that argument about curfew.