Poop. Doodoo. Dump. Turd. Peepee. Urine. Tinkle. Wee. Whatever you want to call it, I\u2019m seriously over it. How many nicknames can we give it before my kids start to care? How long does it have to cling to their bodies before they\u2019re ready for it to land elsewhere? How many low-riding diapers does it take for the bowels to move themselves on over to the toilet?<\/p>\n

My twins are three. Yes, three, and nowhere near caring about potty training. Before you throw the mommy rule book at me, let me just say this: We\u2019ve tried everything. Do you want to know how many tiles are on the floor in our bathroom? Yeah, me neither. But I do know because I\u2019ve clocked more hours in there waiting for them to make the magic happen than I have in all the other rooms in our house put together, times a million.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tried bribery with jelly beans, which led to them spitting in the potty and demanding a bean because \u201cthere is something in there!\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tried turning on the faucet for some sensory stimulation.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tried little Nemo-themed potties that make real flushing sounds and potties so expensive I have to remind myself that it is an investment in their future \u2013 like a college fund for normalcy.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tried stepping stools to the real toilet, so they can feel like \u201cgrown ups.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tried letting them loose outdoors to defecate like cavemen and get in touch with nature.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tried fun fancy big kid underwear, which they insisted on wearing over their diapers like a costume.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tried moving the potty in front of the television for soothing distraction and because I was tired of the bathroom floor.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve made star-charts and sang the praises of living the diaper-free life. I can sing you Elmo\u2019s Potty Time theme song if you like. Nothing happening, my friends. This boy and this girl are cool and comfortable just as they are, thank you very much. And it\u2019s killing me.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more to the story. They have an older brother who\u2019s five and\u00a0also not yet potty trained. The extenuating circumstance is this: He has special needs with limited mobility to get to the toilet and limited speech to tell us when he needs to go. And he, like his younger siblings, doesn\u2019t give a crap (literally) if his diaper needs to be changed. We\u2019re currently in the highest size most diapers go before moving to medical-grade. It\u2019s freaking me out. We\u2019ve applied through our insurance to get a handicap-accessible toilet. We are teaching him how to sign when he needs to go to the bathroom. We\u2019re working on it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Long story short, I\u2019ve never had to train a kid to use The John until now. And apparently, I suck at it. But that\u2019s okay, because we can\u2019t win at everything. So, it might be time to call in the professionals.<\/p>\n

There are such things, you know. They\u2019re called \u201cpotty whisperers\u201d \u2013 like dog whisperers, but with poop. And they\u2019re not just for people like Jules Wainstein, who can\u2019t deign to train her kid because she doesn\u2019t want to clean up the mess<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Al Roker hired one<\/a> and who doesn\u2019t love Al Roker?<\/p>\n

The truth is, I need someone to come into my house and teach my kids and me how to finally kick this thing like a bad habit. We need a diaper detox. But I\u2019m not looking for some drill sergeant to yell at them to use the potty \u201cor else.\u201d I want someone who gets it. I want a specialist who\u00a0has worked with my kind of situation with stubborn threenagers and who\u00a0also has experience with special needs. I\u2019m not chasing unicorns. They do exist. And they might just be what saves us<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019ve decided to not \u00a0feel badly for not acing this thing. Because, you know what? If mothers all over the world can seek out lactation consultants for breast-feeding and pediatricians for teething and sleep specialists for night terrors, then surely I can ask someone for help getting my kids on the toilet, right?<\/p>\n

*Linking up with Meg<\/a>\u00a0and Amanda<\/a>. This article originally appeared on Parent.co<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Are you a master potty trainer? Were YOU easy to potty train as a kid?<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poop. Doodoo. Dump. Turd. Peepee. Urine. Tinkle. Wee. Whatever you want to call it, I\u2019m seriously over it. How many nicknames can we give it before my kids start to care? How long does it have to cling to their bodies before they\u2019re ready for it to land elsewhere? How many low-riding diapers does it take for the bowels to move themselves on over to the toilet? My twins are three. Yes, three, and nowhere …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12,86,26],"tags":[78,97,46,176,74,209,55,136,16,119,63,54,298,84,100,90,29],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Screen-Shot-2017-07-09-at-2.14.39-PM.png?fit=771%2C527&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-Nl","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3059"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3059"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3195,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3059\/revisions\/3195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}