A Mixed Bag

I had little T.Puzzle seated on the potty because I knew a poop was coming. He hadn’t pooped the day before or all morning long. He also had just inhaled his lunch. I figured it couldn’t hurt.

He did about two, good stretches on the potty, each lasting 15 minutes or so. During the second set as it was winding down, I had given up, left the bathroom and fielded a call from Mad Dog. While chatting with Mad Dog a panicked little T.Puzzle shouts, “Mommy, I pooped on the potty!”

I screamed so loud I’m sure Mad Dog experienced hearing loss and nearly dropped the phone in my excitement. I shared the news with Mad Dog, quickly got off the phone and proceeded to make a complete fool of myself as I jumped up and down and yelled like a crazy person. It is hard to imagine living a life in which your happiness is so deeply tied to the bowel movement of another human.  This is a strange and disconcerting aspect of motherhood.

We celebrated with cookies, big boy underpants and made several, celebratory phone calls (it’s like winning an Oscar only better). Little T.Puzzle was pleased as punch. He strutted around in his Thomas the Train undies announcing to everyone and no one that he was ‘just like Full Speed’.

My excitement was short-lived because after dinner little T.Puzzle proceeds to poop in his Thomas pants and seemed unphased when I dramatically threw these pants in the trash (believe me, they were beyond repair). It was getting close to the end of the day and seemed pointless to put a new pair of undies on him. I decided to keep him pantless hoping that would prevent further accidents (many Moms swear by the pantless potty-training method) and I knew he would be in the tub for a bath in less than an hour.

The babysitter arrives as Mad Dog and I have a date nigh scheduled. I explain my potty-training adventure with little T.Puzzle and so she is prepared for the unexpected. As I’m explaining this, T.Puzzle pees all over the floor in the dining room. I clean up the mess, so much for pantless success, and help the babysitter get the boys in a bath. I look at the clock and realize that I haven’t heard from Mad Dog in a while and I should call him to check on his progress towards our date night. It usually isn’t a good sign if I don’t hear from him. That means he is caught up in work and may not be timely.

May not be timely turns into an understatement because when I call him he is still at work AND date night has slipped his mind.

My day was a mixed bag. It was full of surprise, excitement and more than one instance of disappointment. The good news is I know enough to hold on to the good stuff, realize everything is temporary (especially the bad stuff) and that in the grand scheme of things, I have life pretty darn good.

It helped that the movie Mad Dog and I saw, ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ was a ridiculous (and sometimes gross), farcical, nostalgic good time and that Mad Dog is very, very cute. Just like his boys, this saves him every, single time.