The shower challenge

We've recently had our bathroom done. When we moved into our house we had this shower made out of an airing cupboard. We thought was a bit weird but no big deal, until day one of living in the house, when we realised there wasn't enough space to get changed inside the shower so we had to get naked on the landing, which is fine except for when you have visitors. And then when you have two kids the shower challenge gets even more challenging.

Dan leaves the house around 7:30 and seeing as I'm now on maternity leave and I don't really have anywhere to be, it make sense that I shower after that. I have developed various methods of containing small children while I shower, from newborn the bouncy chair worked well. Then about 5-10 months the door bouncer was a winner. Then there was a stage where I couldn't contain them and I had to just shower when Dan was in, until about 20 months when they become more interested in watching something on Netflix on a laptop, than smashing your laptop on the floor. Till eventually they can, in theory, cope with playing by themselves and knocking on the door if they need you.

Then comes the multi-child-shower-lodger challenge. At the moment we're at the one child playing and one bouncy chair child stage. If that's all going well then you just have to worry about not flashing your lodger (because you have to leave the door open to see the bouncy chair child). Add potty training in to the equation and showering becomes a military operation, which if preformed successfully is the achievement of your day.

To try and make the situation easier (and the house less weird), we just had our bathroom done. So the shower cupboard and toilet room next door became one bigger room with a toilet and sink, and the bath (which is the other side of the landing) gained a shower above it. We had this done while we were on holiday. It was nice to be out of the way and the added bonus was we asked the plumber to feed our rabbit. Unfortunately we got a call half way through the holiday to say "that wall we took down ended up being a supporting wall so it's gonna cost you extra".

the shower cupboard with added duck tape so that I can watch Eric while not flashing Rachel

The new sink, where the shower used to be, which is now next to a toilet

Here is an example of a typical shower routine from this week.

7:30am Percy is playing quietly and Eric is asleep, I seize my opportunity and tell Percy I am going for a quick shower, he seems fine. I ask Rachel, our lodger, to knock on if Eric wakes up and I begin getting undressed.

7:35am I hear Percy asking Rachel (who is trying to get ready for work) to play jigsaws with him. I put my clothes back on and do a jigsaw with Percy, then I suggest he watches a bit of TV. That way he will stay still and not bother Rachel. I put on a DVD for him and make my second attempt at the shower.

7:40am Eric wakes up, he won't be able to sit happily in the bouncy chair now because he needs a feed. I reluctantly go downstairs and sit with Percy and feed Eric. I normally only let Percy watch tv once a day, so it's annoying to have used up the TV card this early on... and to not have got a shower out of it. Theres no point switching it off now as he'll kick off because I've only just put it on, and it's not like I can really do anything fun with him as I'm feeding Eric.

8am Eric finishes the feed and it's time to switch the TV off, cue massive meltdown.

8:15 after multiple time outs Percy finally calms down enough for me to contemplate another shower attempt. I get Eric set up in the bouncy chair, now that he's full of milk he's pretty chilled out. That is until I accidentally spray him with water, because we don't have a shower curtain yet.

8:20 my shower comes to an end when I hear Percy shouting me. He's done a wee, half on the potty and half in his pants. In my towel I go downstairs and get him fresh pants.

8:25 I attempt to get dressed. I eventually manage after several more interruptions from both the boys.

8:45 I am dressed! only an hour and 15 mins after I stared trying.

It's been a difficult week. Dan called me from work at lunch time to ask how I was doing, it wasn't going well and he asked if there was anything he could do. "Book yourself in for a vasectomy right now" was my response.

If anyone reading this has a morning routine where they jump in the shower and get dressed within 20 mins with no distractions count yourself lucky.

Although I don't want to fall into a grass in greener trap. Some people have to walk miles to wash in a dirty river and some people have to deal with all this, and turn up for work on time looking professional. The nice thing about being on maternity leave is my head is prrety clear of stuff.

My to do list looks like this:
1) keep family alive.

So far I have a 100% success rate.

I will end with an unrelated thought, which could be a competition. Today I was at Dan's parents church and the preacher was talking about "original sin". It made me wonder, What is the most original sin? e.g common Sin might be things like lying or coveting but what sin is unlikely to have been done before? I thought of "lusting after a slug" but I'd love to hear your ideas, leave me a comment. I might pick the best one and write a poem about it.

Our A & E, Potty Training Holiday

We have just returned from a lovely family holiday to Anglesey. It was lovely apart from the bits that were not lovely (mainly a giant two year old's poo and a tiny baby having a big bump on the head) but lets start with the lovely stuff. We stayed in a very nice cottage with parents, my two sisters and my bother in law. We've been on holiday to Anglesey before when Percy was a baby. That was the holiday when Percy was sometimes up for the day before 5AM! That time the weather was a bit too cold for sitting on the beach and there wasn't much to do other than that. The highlight of the trip was going to Wilkos to buy pick and mix and eating it while playing monopoly and rocking a baby.
This holiday was loads better, a beautiful cottage with a hot tub and several other adults to hold/entertain our boys.

The holiday began with at least an hour and a half of driving just to get to Runcorn, (which should take about 20 mins) so we had to make two stops. We promised Percy an ice cream for being good on the ridiculously long car journey. He said he wanted a blue one. We eventually found a blue bubblegum flavoured ice cream- yuk.

Weeks ago we started joking about about starting Percy's potty training on holiday just so that everyone else would have to endure it too. But then we thought, actually that's not a bad idea. Lots of other people around to help and carpets we never have to see again-bonus! It sounded preferable to me attempting to pull Percy's pants down while breastfeeding Eric. We bought him exciting "big boy pants" (one pack with dinosaurs on and one with pepper pig on).

On the first day we went to the beach and Percy was wearing his tigger swimsuit (without a nappy). I was enjoying a nice swim in the sea when Dad (aka Grandad) came over and said that Dan was doing something really heroic. Then he described how the tail of his tigger swimming costume filled up in the shape of a tail.

Our nappy training strategy was to put him in pants when we were in the house (not when we were in public or in the car) and when he did a wee or poo on the potty go mental with praise for him. Unfortunately he found this very difficult, he seems to only realise he's weeing or pooing when he's actually doing it. We had to abandon the original plan and give him stickers just for a good try at sitting on the potty. If you spend enough time sitting on a potty it is likely that at some point some wee will come out. So, when a tiny dribble of wee did come out we decided it was time to go mental with the praise, even though in my head I was thinking 'this is just a statistical probability given the amount of time you were "trying" for'. Unfortunately he then kicked off about having to be wiped so we had to withdraw the praise and stickers.

One time he claimed he did a wee on the potty and to be fair, technically he did wee on the potty, but I think when you make no effort to pull your pants down and you just wee through them this makes your attempt invalid.

On the morning we left we sensed a wee was near, and the bribe of TV was enough to make him actually do a wee on the potty. It was high 5s all round, stickers and an episode of Paw Patrol. I wish people celebrated that much every time I did a wee!

On the Friday, which was our last proper day, we went out for galettes at a cafe. We were sitting outside on a table that had a bench on one side, I had been feeding Eric, but when the food came I wanted to enjoy it properly (not one handed while jiggling a baby) so I fetched the car seat put it on the bench and popped him in it. I was halfway through my meal when there was a loud crash and I looked down to see the car seat upside-down and Eric facedown on the floor next to it!

I reacted a bit hysterically, which I was later glad of because I must have that crazy mum instinct that mums should have. I scooped him up and cuddled him, it was so horrible to see him scream. But he didn't look badly hurt and the crying was a good thing really. We put ice on his head and the other customers tried to pretend that everything was normal. I could see that he was probably fine but I just wanted to get him checked so we drove off to the Holyhead hospital while my parents took Percy for a walk. Unfortunately Holyhead hospital doesn't have an A & E, just a minor injuries nurse who isn't allowed to give advice about children under 3 months. So we set off to Bangor hospital where we waited a really long time to be told what we probably already knew... he was fine. Phew! We might have had to stay in for observations but thanks to terrible NHS waiting times the 4 hour post accident observation time was coming to an end anyway.

While waiting I reflected on how unlike the programme Casualty, casualty actually was. You never see a kid wait 3 hours and then have a bead removed from their nose.

 I'll end with a highlight from a family game of articulate that I tweeted to the games company that makes articulate.

I got two replies and a retweet...it's practically gone viral.

P.S Since I began writing this on Saturday Percy has done 7 successful wees on the potty!