How not to potty train twins

I’m amazed how some of the most touching moments during my career as a twin mum have been followed by some of the most disgusting experiences of my entire life. Take last night, for instance…

Hubby was running late at work so I started the bedtime routine on my own.  Before their bath I love to let the boys chase each other up and down the hallway. All it takes is for me to shout: “He’s coming”, and I’m rewarded with a squeal of excitement and a view of two pudgy naked boys running off as fast as their little legs will carry them thinking they’re being chased by their brother. Sometimes they get so excited they run smack into each other and end up on their bums giggling. Each night I’m filled with immense pride at the fact I’ve managed to create the two cutest children ever.

On this particular night, the fun quickly deteriorated. T2 was sprinting off at speed away from T1’s outstretched arms. As they reached their bedroom, I spotted something dark slip out from behind T2 and on to the cream rug. More dark lumps followed. It took me a few seconds to figure out what it was and in the precious moment it took my poo-o-meter to kick into gear T2 had turned on his heel, stomped straight through it and started to run off the cream rug and on to the white-painted floorboards. It felt like I was running through porridge and shouting “Nooooooo”, in slow motion. I was too late. He had already squashed each piece of poo into the carpet and had chunks of it caked to his feet as he ran towards me excited that I was finally joining in the game of chase.

I scooped him up at arm’s length, taking care not to let him to wrap his legs around me chimpanzee-style, while dragging T1 by the hand away from the devastation.

I had the fun task of pulling the chunks off his feet with the thankfully-handy baby wipes, before sticking them both out of the way in the bath where I could keep an eye on them as I collected the clumps of scattered poo. For a small person he had managed to spread it an impressive distance.

Five minutes later, when the worst of it was all cleaned up, Hubby strolled in from work where he’d had a few leisurely meetings, enjoyed an hour-long lunch break and been given plenty of hot coffee.

I resisted the urge to kill him and instead made him take over the task of bath time while I got on with the evil job of cleaning up the poo. Despite trying to pummel the rug into the washing machine it was just too big for the bloody thing so I was left spending my evening sitting on my hands and knees on the floor scrubbing brown stains out of a once cream rug while Hubby spent the night laughing at me.

I won’t be trying potty training any time soon that is for sure. And the term ‘house husband’ is starting to have a lovely ring to it.