The bloody cat is incredibly close to being put in the microwave. I caught her pissing up the bath side and on a towel, the pesky house dwelling little shit. She usually does this when on heat and it is the sole reason she is barred from the lounge. However, judging by the significant lack of wailing and yowling like a wanton whore whilst rawling around in readers wives style I'm thinking she's doing it more out of spite.

Anti bacterial wipes, tea tree oil, fresh lemons (allegedly a deterrent) and even bloody lynx spray later and the house still hums of nasty l'eau de cat piss. Great. Just dandy.

If only that was the extent of my woe, if only I tell you.

Then comes The Toddlers latest antics as his role as a trainee sanity assassin.  Having been virtually dry during the day for several weeks he has decided to piss on the floor. Huge great big Willy floods. Despite being dry at nap times and virtually dry during the night.  Trying to ignore it and pretending to not be even slightly perturbed as I adopt that irritating high pitched mummy voice through gritted teeth 'oh dear darling, nevermind, mummy will just clean this up off the floor because we will wee in the potty or toilet next time won't we?' Whilst my internal narrator hisses 'for fuck sake, are you trying to piss me off, that is just vile you cretinous toddler?' This is combined with returning to type and waking every 60-120minutes throughout the night lately.

Then came Friday, Friday was supposed to be trampoline day. Both sets of grandparents clubbed together for Thing One and Thing Two's birthdays and bought them a surprise present to share, an 8ft trampoline. We have purposely been stashing it at The Grandparents so we could erect it on Friday which marks the middle point between their birthdays. So what happens Thursday? Thing One hurts his ankle resulting in a trip to A&E on Friday. Bugger. He has to apparently 'rest' it for two to three weeks and even I'm not mean enough to give him a trampoline when he can't use it. However, if he keeps being a little sod, my stance on this could very well change.

Even the rain is wrong. Rather than pelting it down rhythmically its all crappy and just a constant hiss of sheer bloody wetness that won't even lull you to sleep.

That's assuming you are lucky enough to get any sleep and just so we're clear, if you do....I don't much like you at present. I'm neither compassionate nor nice. Upon hearing The Husband snoring all oblivious in blissful slumber downstairs on the sofa, whilst I stew in a sleep deprived homicidal psychosis, rather then be happy for The Husband, I have to sit on my hands to prevent myself stumbling downstairs to pull out his eyelashes and hold a match to his toe hair.

However according to The Husband he has no iota of sympathy as I 'choose' to breastfeed and cosleep so thus being so, I therefore choose to have no sleep or at the very least deserve it. 

My children made me ugly. Never mind beauty sleep, any would be nice.

It's a good job the little sleep bandits are cute.

Toilet rage

I'm failing to remember the reasons attaining to why potty training is a good thing. It gets awfully tiring having to empty the potty. The Toddler now wakes up early and then proceeds to wake me with a 'WEE! WEE! MUM, WEE!' reminiscent of a fog horn whilst desperately scrambling out of his pj's and night nappy. Once upon a time he'd wake much later and easily be convinced to doze with a flop of a boob in his general direction. Now, I'm expected to catapult myself out of bed in three seconds and accompany him to the bathroom through a gibbering, stumbling sleep deprived haze to snatch his seat and stool before he attempts to which would prematurely wake Thing One. He then insists on turning the tap on full then shrieks at me to turn it off.

I keep my voice to a whisper that is more suspiciously related to a croak, my vocal chords mother evidently slept around. I try and coax him back to bed with urgent shushing and ramblings about it still being sleepy time in what should be English yet my tongue is too thick and i'm far too distracted by the sleep fur on my brain and the rattling of my eyes in my skull as they try to focus so that I probably sound like I'm talking in ancient tongues or more inelegantly, caveman.

The little bugger takes absolute advantage of my delayed reflexes and before I can give chase he's getting carpet burn on his arse as he flys down the stairs on it at astonishing speed and vaults himself into the lounge where The Husband is doing a terribly crap impression of looking awake and in charge of he who wakes ridiculously early, aka Thing One. This means game over.I have zero chance of getting him back to bed. Whilst I attempt to come to terms with this he's already stage diving off window sills and demanding I get him big boy pants at an excruciating volume. It's at this point I'm debating gin on my crunchy nut cornflakes.

And so the day begins.

He's generally amazing at using the potty yet he discovered the other day that he can now manage to get himself on the toilet which sounds like formidable good luck until you factor in the aforementioned tap issue and his extreme delight at wasting copious amounts of bog roll.

A rather recent development is toilet rage. Yes, really. I was rather spoiled before I met The Husband insofar as to say, I can't remember a time when my family home's (Yes, plural, we moved) didn't have three toilets yet here at The Party of Five we have but one solitary toilet. Oh the woe. The Toddler sees Thing One or Thing Two on the toilet and decides that it is infact his toilet and nobody else is possibly allowed on it as he screams 'MOVE' at them then proceeds to become possessed by psychosis which makes him embark on shoving his siblings off the loo as he screams. Quite off putting to whichever Thing is trying to pee at the time.

I admit however that I am somewhat of a wuss and put him in a nappy if I dare to leave the house not relishing the prospect of a wet buggy or even more likely a wet back if he pissed whilst in the sling. Despite having a nappy on he livend up a trip to Asda with his volume turned all the way up to eleven as he demanded 'WEE' several times, refusing to wee in his nappy instead forcing me to complete the wretched obstacle course otherwise known as trying to get to the bloody toilets which is remarkably difficult. Thanks Asda. Obviously people can't possibly need a wee during shopping.

On several occasions however upon returning home I've found his nappy to be in fact dry, how fabulous! Further impressive is that twice now he has had unexpected naps with pants on, breastfeeding obsessively and yet remained dry. His night nappies are now half the size with barely any boosting and are suspiciously light in a morning despite his excessive night feeds.

It all sounds rampantly positive and yet each trip outside is now plagued with the worry that he appears to refuse to pee in a nappy and often we wall miles with no toilets in sight which will result in the cumbersome addition of carrying a potty everywhere for impromptu public al fresco weeing.

Talking of potties....if you think shitty nappies are grim you have obviously not yet become aquainted with shit in a potty.

All we have to work on now is the toilet rage before he scares the shit quite literally back up the bums of his siblings. He's such a bully.

....and my legs aren't enjoying the step aerobics of constant trips to the loo with him.

Oh for a downstairs loo. I have downstair loo envy, how abysmally tragic. Oh god.... how disgustingly middle aged. Excuse me whilst I re-dye my roots Purple and pretend I'm still young.

Fanpottytastic

Whilst stricken with The Pox of Doom it became apparent that The pesky little buggers deigned it necessary to congregate in a party in his pants. Or should I say nappy. Resorting to somewhat desperate measures to air them so as they wouldn't sweat and fester we took the brave decision to temporarily put him in cotton underpants figuring that carpet puddles were marginally preferential over willy rot.

Only The independent Toddler appears to have had ideas of his own and taken the opportunity to voluntarily and seemingly effortlessly potty train himself. We've not had a Single accident yet (touch wood) however I must confess that I'm not brave enough yet to test this at nap time nor the two times we've been out and obviously he is still also in a nappy at night.

He is doing tremendously well, independently going to his potty whenever he needs to even if engrossed in play, television or breastfeeding. When upstairs he simply stops whatever he is doing, tells us he needs a wee and waits for us to take him to the loo. Clever little sod.

One thing that has come into its own again is our stash of baby leg warmers. He spent the majority of his first summer in just a cloth nappy and leg warmers, a marvellous idea especially when changing nappies all the time. However as he became more adept at mischief we had to change to trousers as he found it wonderfully amusing to take off his nappies and turn the lounge into an adventure world of piss puddles.

However, now that he is in 'big boy pants' they allow him to use the potty with ease without the struggle and frustration of removing pants and trousers each and every time.

He is so enamoured with aforementioned big boy pants that he greeted his grandparents with a pelvic thrust whilst proudly stating 'big boy pants!' Gesturing excitedly at his crotch.

My baby is growing up far too fast. Today is The third day running that he has point blank refused a nap too. This being a tremendously less enchanting development in my eyes.

Oh, pants.

Thing Two has spent the majority of the weekend trying to teach herself joined up writing and cutting up pieces of paper into smaller pieces of paper, over 100 tiny pieces to be exact.  She has a slight infatuation with her scissors, still better then boys I suppose.  She is the only five year old child I know who natters to play out with friends and then dumps them so she can hole herself up in her room and play with scissors....and write, a lot.

The Toddler has been driving me to distraction wit his constant demands to be taken to the toilet for a 'wee wee!!!' which appears to be somewhat of a game with a ritualistic element insofar as to say he has to shut the door, grab the toilet roll and stuff it between his legs, flush the toilet himself, weigh himself, drag his stool to the sink, turn the tap on, rinse hands....turn tap on fuller and then faff about on the landing before we descend the stairs (on our bums) only for him to want to repeat it 5 minutes later.  I never did fancy step aerobics.  Oh for the luxury of a downstairs loo.The Toddler also got his first pair of big boy pants this weekend, not that we expect we will need them anytime soon, not to mention the fact they're huge on him.  Despite being 25 months of age he is only just fitting into 12-18m clothes and the smallest ones were 18-24m.  He likes them mainly because he can take them off, to pee on the floor. We're still categorically not 'potty training him' rather we're following his cues and just providing the tools.  I endeavour to attempt this more enthusiastically in Summer. Preferably next Summer if I had my way, unfortunately he has other ideas, still at least we appear to be skipping the potty.  I detest potties.

Thing one has adored the lack of rain and the excessive amount of time he's been allowed to play outside with friends.  The little ray of sunshine really could make friends anywhere.  However we've also had the same old nuclearustic tantrums over tidying his room.

Rewriting the rules and taking the pee....

Given the choice of a potty or a small toy bucket, which would you pee in?

The Toddler shouts 'wee! Wee!' And proceeds to frantically tug at his trousers. I dutifully take them off for him and pass him the potty he was gesticulating wildly at. He whips off his cloth nappy and flings it at me with a loud 'Urgh!' And stands, yes stands, over the potty whilst staring at his winkie  willing it to wee.  He will only wee standing up and he can 'make' himself wee and indeed stop mid wee (handy for when I snatch away books and other things he finds it gloriously funny to wee on, it means he can save some wee and pee on the next random item he shouldn't pee on)The concentration was intense and the frustrated grunt humerous. Voila! A wee, albeit a tiny one. Hoorah! He rejoiced. I rejoiced. Hell, The Dog , rejoiced.

Having cleaned the potty I heard 'weewee!' Again. I handed him the potty again yet he shouted 'NO' and hurled it over the gate. Rinse and repeat. He wandered off to his house, grabbed his bucket and stood bold as brass in front of me whilst he pee'd in it.  He handed it to me to empty and I gave him the potty back. Another cross 'no' and the potty got another flying lesson (perhaps they were on bogof.....) and the bucket was dribbled in again with a forced wee.

You see, we're not actually potty training per se. We're far too lazy and I simply abhor the notion of 'training' babies to do anything preferring the more organic approach of providing the tools and let them develop as they see fit. Besides, I know from Thing One and Thing Two that if they find it funny and have wee games then they're not ready, leave it and revisit a few months later and it just happens without fuss.The Toddler is still so young, I'm not expecting him to get serious about it for at least another 6-9 months minimum.

We attempted sticker rewards with Thing Two and the devious little madame discovered if she made each wee into three seperate wee's, she should, technically, be entitled to three stickers and three performances from the parental cheering squad.

Likewise the little cretins find it fiendishly funny if a parent gets remotely angsty over their 'lets make puddles all across the carpet and splash in them' antics, in fact you could say they find it piss funny. However, if you neglect to react and just unceremoniously clean up, they soon get bored.

Whilst I remain undoubtedly impressed by their (when it suits them....) bladder control, I fail to share the hilarity of it.

Unfortunately, for me, The Toddler loves to take full advantage of the nakedness bath time entails and tries to piss on as many towels, books, patches of carpet as he can, issuing himself a congratulating round of applause and cheering after each dribble. Needless to say he is the only one cheering. He then has the bare faced cheek (get it? ha!) To point and exclaim 'wee wee!' Until I scrub.

His game is up now though, mean mummy keeps him firmly, despite rabid protestations, in her grip until The Husband is ready to put a nappy on him. Ha! Take that sweet toddler o'mine! Back of the net!

His latest obsession is the toilet. He loves to put his seat on, sit on it, steal bog roll to noisily blow his nose before shoving it between his legs and into the loo. He then hops off (having not wee'd) via the little stool and tries to flush it before he allows you to plonk him in the bath (where he does actually wee....as you do) He is terribly territorial over the toilet and wails 'miiiine!' Whilst working himself into a right little tizz. It's rather tough shit though for the little fellow as that loo has to serve 5 people.

Maybe he should stick to the bucket afterall.... it's tremendously portable too with it's nifty little handle.....