Hallelujah!!!

There have been some wonderfully stupendous, miraculously awesome, over-the-top fantastic things happening in the Hicks household as of late. What I am about to tell you is truly amazing, and has been six years in the making. Ladies and gentlemen…We…are now a…diaper-free household!!!!!



Praise be to the baby Jesus! That’s right folks, Mike and I are now the proud parents of not one, but two children who no longer poop and pee in a diaper, but on a toilet…like real live humans and everything.

Elyse is now officially potty trained. I remember when Aaron got with the program and mastered the fine art of using the potty. He was three and a half and Elyse was just a newborn. It was such an amazing, freeing thing to know that my child could take care of this little task all on his own, but we were just starting out with Elyse and I almost couldn’t imagine a day when both kids would be rid of diapers for good. But here we are, a little over three years later and I have bought my last bag of diapers. Ok, to be honest, she is still using nighttime diapers, but in the grand scheme of things, nighttime potty training is a walk in the park compared to mastering it during the day. I can live with buying one bag of nighttime diapers once a month.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that this has been an easy journey by any stretch of the imagination. This has been a battle of wills people, and to be honest, she just about broke me. Like the day that I had asked her literally every ten minutes for the entire day if she needed to pee, and every single time she said no, but then she would disappear for a minute or two and come back dripping with urine announcing with a grin that she had just peed in her underwear. The last straw that day was when I asked her if she needed to use the potty, she said no while she was rummaging through her toy box. I walked out of her room for exactly one minute, came back, and she told me that she had peed in the toy box…where she keeps her toys…peed…in the f*****g TOY BO X!!!!!

So I lost my shit for a minute, decided that, “This is war Peacock,” and refused to give up. The next morning when I presented her with underwear yet again she looked at me like, “Really, after the whole toy box thing you are still working the underwear angle?” And from then on she understood that she could pee in her underwear, she could defile her toy box, but by God I would keep coming at her every freakin morning with another pair of underwear until either I took a nap with my head in the oven or she gave in and got with the program.

And thankfully…she got with the program.

Penguins

So often I look at Elyse and I wonder, “What in the world goes on in that little head of hers?” Then, she and I have conversations like this and I realize that maybe I’m better off not knowing.

Elyse is sitting in the tub mixing concoctions of bath water, bubbles, and shampoo and I am I trying to work on my latest knitting project…

Elyse: Here Mommy, you want some coffee?
Me: Sure Sweetie.
Elyse: (20 cups of “coffee” later) Here Mommy, have some coffee.
Me: You know what Elyse, maybe you should make some coffee for the sharks in the tub (Meaning the toy sharks that she was playing with earlier, not insinuating that she is bathing with live sharks and runs the risk of being eaten)
Elyse: Mommy, you know there aren’t any sharks in here. I’ll make some for my penguins.
Me: Alrighty. (Sure, I’m nuts for suggesting sharks, but penguins are perfectly legit.)
Elyse: My penguins are hungry.
Me: Well make something for them to eat. What do they like to eat?
Elyse: Frosting.
Me: Oh, well what kind?
Elyse: Chocolate. Oh, and they also like frosted beef and frosted monkeys.
Me: (Mouth hanging open) ???????? (Thinking to myself, “What the……..frosted monkeys?”)
Elyse: Yep! (She gets busy making the frosted beef and monkeys)
Me: (Staring at her waiting to see what happens next…mouth still hanging open)
Elyse: Oh NO! My penguins are dead. I killed them?
Me: Um, how…Sweetie (Stay on her good side. Stay on her good side.)
Elyse: Like this…(And she flings the water/bubbles/shampoo concoction in the general direction of the penguins.)
Me: Oh. (Sweet mother of mercy.)
Elyse: Now they’re gonna have to go in my toilet. I’m gonna have to flush them.
Me: Ok, time to get out of the tub.