When I first took to the task of potty training, my first two kids were more than two and a half years old before they discovered the white bowl in the bathroom was for something other than flushing random objects around the house. My third found out much sooner. Why? Not because she was ready any sooner than her brother or sister. Plain and simple, it was the price of diapers that wore me down. I was tired of paying fifty cents every time she peed.
Here are 10 more things I’ve been longing for over the past six years—so much, in fact, that I get misty-eyed just thinking about it:
#10: When every tissue box in the house doesn’t look like this (see pic).
#9: When thirty-plus-pound, ambulatory children no longer desire to be carried.
#8: Being able to leave the house without locating, affixing, velcroing, tying and/or buckling a total of eight shoes (including my own).
#7: Sitting on the couch without a fear of falling (i.e., discovering someone removed every last cushion).
#6: When every member of the house can blow his or her own nose unassisted.
#5: Hearing the word “mine” without losing an eardrum.
#4: Actually being able to keep toilet paper in the toilet paper dispenser (without the house turning into the get-off-my-lawn guy’s yard on Halloween).
#3: Taking more than three steps without tripping on, then being mocked by, a talking or musical toy.
#2: No more hooks, latches or gates that perplex me more than they do the children.
#1: No more pee droplets on, around, near and far away from the toilet seat. (Well, to some extent, maybe that will never change.)
Parents of teenagers, bite your tongues. As of now, these are my own personal war stories.