the more it stays the same

When you want to go shopping with newborn twins, every bit of preparation - every get-your-shoes-on, make-sure-I-have-the-list, does-everyone-have-a-coat bit - is timed so that you can nurse them right before you walk out the door. That way, maybe, they'll make it without needing to be nursed again before you get home.

When you want to go shopping with two-year-old twins, every bit of preparation - every get-your-shoes-on, make-sure-I-have-the-list, does-everyone-have-a-coat bit - is timed so that you can have them go potty right before you walk out the door. So that maybe they'll make it home from the store with dry pants.

It's not that you have to stop paying exquisite attention to your timing. It's that what you're trying to time correctly changes.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Book 12 of 15: The No-Cry Potty Training Solution by Elizabeth Pantley

Well, sometimes you just need to be practical. Yesterday was one of those days. I have two-year old twins, and potty-training has never been what I was good at as a mom, so I read this for encouragement. To gird up my loins before I teach the Twinkies to, well, gird up their loins (um, sort of).

I picked this one out because I remembered thinking that Pantley's "No-Cry Sleep Solution" was gentle and practical, and figured her potty-training book might be too. It was. She has lots of "try this ideas", but the overall thing she keeps emphasizing is that potty-training is a matter of the parent keeping her cool and being consistent and patient, and I know I've found that to be true in the past. 

This was a helpful read, and I really appreciated her emphasizing the part you can control (i.e., your own attitude) instead of the part you can't (i.e., whether or not your children actually produce anything in the desired location).

More on the 15/15 project here.

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell