bowels, not bowls

I originally sat down to write this post after putting the kids to bed. The boys went down great. Bethany, not so much. It was partly my fault. Each night we put her down and as I’m walking out the door she begins to whine like a baby. Each night I stop and to figure out what her deal is. It’s the attention but she always seems to have some other excuse. So each night I give her another kiss, or more water, or cover her up again. Always something. Tonight I’d had enough. I told her she was fine and that she needed to go to sleep. I gave her fair warning that if I had to go back into her room, she would get a spank. Not wanting to follow through with the spank, I sat at my computer for a few minutes catching up on your blogs and then proceeded to ignore her desperate cries for attention, even the negative kind, by going downstairs.

By time I finished folding 4 loads of laundry, I’d almost forgotten that I wanted to blog. Now what was it that I wanted to write about?

Ah yes, my kids and their bowels. I know this topic interests all of you [read sarcasm there]. I’ll try to keep it brief. Kid #1 has bowel issues that have existed from day 1. Today he failed at being a big kid and pooped in his undies and didn’t tell anyone for 6 hours. Hello, can we saw “raw bottom”. And he still hasn’t learned. His sister continues to follow in his footsteps. She’ll be 3 on Sunday and still won’t go on the potty. She refuses and right now its not worth the battle. Lately she’s been going well on her own (we’re eating lots of fruit) and is pooping and getting wiped a lot. Hello, can we say raw bottom for her too! Child #3 does great at pottying. Only he doesn’t tell you when he has to go. And unlike his siblings who were dry through the night at 6 months, he’s still not dry at night. Setting a timer has been helping me remember to take Judah. He sits to potty and soon we hope he learns to stand to potty.

Why do my kids have bowel issues? As if that’s not enough, I read on facebook that a buddy of mine pretty much trained her son in 2 weeks and is done with diapers. I, on the other hand, have a 3 year old who won’t sit on the potty without a fit. Nice. I haven’t even really tried with her cause I don’t want her to have a negative impact on her little brother. This hasn’t been a fun learning experience for anyone in this house. I would love any ideas in the potty training arena if you have them.