EPA: Earned Potty Average

I told my husband last night that I think motherhood stress can be judged by a new statistic: Earned Potty Average. Its a count of the average number of times you go to the potty (there's that word again) in one hour. Use the following scale to determine daily craziness:

Less than 1: Big deal. I mean, my co-worker goes more than that on his own. You either have kids in diapers, which require entirely different statistics, or you've graduated to having potty soloists.

1-2: Average average. Maybe you have a preschooler that needs help wiping or a short daughter that can't reach the paper towels, but you're time committed is minimal. You're on your way to graduation!

2-3: Potty training is in season. You're definitely in there often enough to get to know the full lay of the land. Do you have to sing or read a book? Bonus points for that. You're probably even making a couple of unnecessary trips a day. Maybe a separate ratio should be tallyed for successful to unsuccessful trips. The lower the ratio, the more likely it is that we're eating out for dinner tonight. And don't ask why.

3-4: So sorry. At this level, you either have multiple potty trainers (twins, close-in-age children), or need to consult a doctor about potential bladder problems. I can't even imagine this level of potty trips, much less gather enough patience, encouraging words, or books to make those trips enjoyable. You probably need to consider investing in one of those blow-up portable potty seats a stranger told me about yesterday-- then little joey can go anywhere anytime! (As long as he can hold it long enough for you to blow up the seat, add the liner, and find a hidden place to put it.)

Oh, the drama.

The 5 second rule

Every mom and college frat boy knows the 5-second rule: When food drops on the floor, or any undesirable surface, you have 5 seconds to pick it up before any nastiness is transferred rendering the food inedible. In fact, I even heard a factoid on the news about how some scientists (moms I'm sure) proved that there is some validity to the rule because germs can only transfer from surface to surface so fast-- much longer than 5 seconds, but I can't remember the exact number.

There is some variation in the 5 seconds required for location, food absorb-ability, and general preference. For example, dropping a sucker in the sand is bad because of absorption, but worse is the sucker in the ashtray. Or on the floor of the McDonalds bathroom. You get the idea.

Well, with the first child, even 5 seconds is unacceptable. No dirt must enter the mouth of my child, despite all of the crib chewing, lovey loving, and general exploring. But with the second, 5 seconds is avoided completely by the upgrade: the head-turn.

My youngest child, Kate, eats things off of the floor all of the time. I try not to notice, by a quick turn of the head. She adds a difficulty factor to this in her loves of mooching and throwing.

It all came to a head Tuesday night at Fazoli's. Everyone knows it's 99 cents kids meal night on Tuesdays at Fazoli's, and we were there in force. Kate loves the breadsticks, but kept dropping them on the floor. Then she thought it was fun to throw them on the floor. I think it adds flavoring. At first, I turned my head. But when it became a constant entertainment, I had to intervene with the "Let's eat at the table" comment. She doesn't care. Then she slides it cleverly off the table with a defiant look, and I am forced to throw the breadstick remnants away which leads to the inevitable crying. Ugh. That's the point of the head turn-- avoid the crying.

So, later, as if the throwing isn't enough. Kate shows up from visiting the coloring table with a new breadstick. Where did this mystery breadstick come from? They don't have the friendly old lady passing them out anymore (cost cutting measure), so it's not that. There are several tables nearby, and a helpful lady who told me, "She didn't have that when she walked by a minute ago." But it didn't look dirty, and no one looked mad, so I just hoped for the best. Sam told me that she got it from our table, and I chose to believe the best.

You all feel better about your parenting and worse about mine now, right? Well, no one's sick. Yet.