Potty Quest and Other Bodily Function Information

So, the replacement potty arrived today! The kids were all excited to open the box. And when they did . . . they weren't sure what it was. Once I said "it's a little potty!" Nick grabbed it and started running toward the bathroom, saying "Bathroom! Bathroom!" and Sarah immediately pulled her pants down as far as she could, shouting "Pants off! Pants off!" Unfortunately, the potty is tiny. I mean, really tiny. It seems more like a doll potty to me, to be honest. And the little "shield" thing would not fulfill its purpose (ahem. Keeping little boys from accidentally peeing on the floor), but would really just serve to slow them down from slipping off the front. Did I mention it's TINY?

So, I had them each try sitting on it (full clothed, in the living room), then explained that we'd have to get one a little bit bigger, but still smaller than the big potty. They were fine with that.

Right now, I am taking a break in the disinfecting process of the hand-me-down potties. Because I am cheap. Right now we're really trying to get out of debt, so we're deep in the D.a.ve Ram.se.y "live like no one else" thing, and, hey, hand-me-down potties are saving me at least $40-60 based on what I saw at B.a.bie.s R U.s last weekend. But I am not only cheap, I am also somewhat germ-phobic, so I put on the rubber gloves and am hitting these suckers with all kinds of bleach. When the neighbor first brought the potties down (along with a ton of nice toys), we had the following conversation about them:

Me: I'm not so sure about the used potties.

Mr. X: Well, if you had a plastic cup that was full of poo, and then you washed it, would you drink out of it?

Me: (brief pause while I wonder if this makes me totally neurotic) No.

Mr. X: Me neither, which is why we're not going to drink out of them.

And now it's back to disinfecting potties, but only after bragging that I think I earned two merit badges today (I originally thought I earned just one, but when I told Mr. X I deserved a merit badge, he thought it was for another incident, so now I think I deserve two). Mr. X thought I deserved one because, five minutes before the babysitter arrived for our spirituality class and twenty minutes before Mr. X got home from work, Nick threw up all of his dinner, and I had him and his high chair cleaned up (with the laundry rinsed and ready to go in the washer) by the time Mr. X walked in. (Nick was fine--I think he just gagged on a piece of food, but the poor little guy was so pitiful because he was really sad about it, and kept saying "clothes all dirty" even though I told him we could wash them and make them all clean.)

I thought I deserved one because I checked on Sarah, who had been napping for fifteen minutes, and discovered that she had a poopy diaper. She's had such awful trouble with diaper rash lately that I didn't want to let her nap with it on, but I wanted her to nap, too. So I changed her out of her pants, onesie, cotton-prefold-with-Snappi-and-velcro-diaper-cover and into a clean disposable diaper (and pants back on again) without waking her up! All right, enough of my bragging. I have potties to sterilize!