Another short snapshot at a time I'm sure every parent of high-order multiples dreads...potty-training. The next piece of the puzzle has already posted in my FB reader group for those of you who are interested.

Waves of Hope

We're All Going Potty

Edward ~ August 12th 2024

"Whose idea was this again?"

Bella snorts, picking up another kind that looks exactly like the one I have in my hand except it's blue. "Yours, honey. What about this one?"

Eyeing it, then the one I'm holding, I shrug. "I honestly have no idea. What's the difference?"

The sales lady and Bella share a look—one I know means I've said something dumb—before they crack up. "Well, the one in your hand is green...and this one is blue," Bella finally says...slowly, like I'm an idiot, which I'm fast starting to believe I might be seeing as she was right and this was my idea in the first place.

As the sales lady wanders away to help someone whose toddler is tearing the store to pieces shelf by shelf, I sigh and put the damn thing back where I found it, raking my hand through my hair. "How the hell are we already potty training the sixers?"

Bella breathes out a sigh just like mine, leaning into my side as we stare at a wall of potties. "Time is flying by, huh?"

"It sure is."

Willow was potty trained by the time she was two and half, and Bella tells me all three boys were diaper-free by three years old. We're hoping we're as lucky with the sixers, which is why we're starting them now, perhaps a little early by some people's standards.

"Fuck it, let's just get a bunch of these," I finally say, pointing at a generic looking kind that honestly looks more like a seat. "We're gonna need six, right?"

Bella nods, grabbing one to show the woman on the desk since there aren't even six of them on the shelf. "Yeah, otherwise you know they're going to fight over them."

Fighting over potties. Now there's an image.

It's an image I get to see play out for real a few hours later.

"Mine!" Rylee screeches, trying to hold onto three at once.

"No, mine!" River screams, hitting himself in the head when Rylee loses grip on one and he—with the potty in his hands—flies backward.

Mother of Christ.

Bella tries valiantly not to laugh as she picks our boy up and tells Rylee to quit hoarding the potties.

"Mine, Momma," she snarks, one under each arm and a defiant scowl on her face.

Shaking my head, I take both from her and tell her to sit on the step for two minutes. She shoots me the death stare but goes silently other than the slap of her feet on the hardwood.

"I have a headache," I grumble.

Shooting me a smirk, Bella reminds me—again—that this was my idea.

What the fuck was I thinking?

~ oOo ~

"All right, y'all know how this works, right?"

Mackenzie nods sagely. "Pee-pee on the potty, get candy."

"That's right, buddy," I tell him, ruffling his hair as Bella takes off his diaper and sits him on the potty. We've got a little lineup on the deck, the babies all diaperless and perched on their potties. Some of them are happier about it than others.

River inherited Arlo's love of nakedness and would happily run around with no clothes on forever. We slathered sunscreen on all of 'em after lunch and let them run riot around the back yard with just t-shirts and diapers on, so he's loving life right now.

"Momma, I pee-pee!" Rylee suddenly screeches, hand already stretched out for an M&M.

Bella and I raise my eyebrows at each other before smiling at our daughter, who obviously doesn't understand that we'd be able to hear it. "Are you really?"

Rylee widens her eyes and purses her rosebud lips in an attempt to look innocent. She fails miserably. "I am, I am!"

Sure enough, when she stands up, the potty is empty.

Five minutes later, when the novelty has thoroughly worn off and the sixers are running around on the grass with Max and their brothers, who have just been dropped off after an ice cream date with my dad, I run outside to the sound of Jaxson yelling and Bella laughing her head off.

I spot Jaxson first, hopping around the grass with his foot in his hand and a disgusted expression on his face.

Bella is doubled over nearby, Arlo and Finley laughing, and the babies cackling even though I don't think they really know what they're laughing at.

"What's going on?"

Bella glances up at me and manages to sputter "Jaxson...baby...poop...foot" and that's enough for me to connect the dots.

It only takes a few seconds and a quick glance around to spot the abandoned diaper and the bare butt running away from my dad.

Rylee squeals as he swings her up in the air and asks if she pooped on the grass. "No poop, Pops!" she giggles, all mischievous smiles and bright silver eyes.

"You're supposed to go in the potty, Buster," he chuckles, heading for the diaper bag on the table.

"This is gross," Jaxson grumbles, hopping past me to get to the hose attached to the back wall of the house.

Meeting Bella's gaze, I huff a laugh through my nose and shrug. "Are we sure it wasn't Max?"

Max's head pops up from his spot on his outdoor bed, and I can almost see the indignation in his eyes.

"Sorry, bud," I snort, ruffling his hair as Jaxson continues to tell us how 'gross' it is.

"This is child abuse," he raves, hosing his foot off and scowling when his awful parents can only laugh at his misery.

"Maybe you should wear shoes outside," Bella finally pants, wiping tears from under her eyes.

He shakes his head. "Maybe those little animals should learn to use the toilet!"

When Rylee says "I'm no' a animal, I a duck!" and starts quacking and her sixer brothers join in, not even Jaxson can keep his stern face. He cracks first and the rest of us follow.

~ oOo ~

Hours later, we line the potties up in the hallway separating the nurseries. Bella has a little plastic baggie of M&Ms, but she's hiding them like a drug dealer walking by a police station, because if the sixers see them, it's game over.

"All right, now y'all go for a pee-pee before bed, okay? We're all going potty," she says, the sixers nodding seriously.

And fuck, she isn't kiddin'.

I didn't think it would be this difficult getting the sixers interested in using the new potties, but I've got the mother of all headaches, and I've cleaned more piss and shit off the floor today than I ever did when Max was a puppy.

It only takes a couple of minutes before they're poking each other, whining that they're not comfy, and crying because they don't want to go to daycare tomorrow even though they aren't and we haven't told them they are.

They go one or two mornings a week—both so Bella and I can have a few hours to recharge our batteries or work, whichever is more pressing at the time. It also helps them socialise with kids other than each other. I don't envy any kid who tries to break into their little gang.

Bella slides down the wall she's leaning against as it all goes to screaming, pinching, definitely-not-pottying hell.

Her eyes meet mine and I know without her having to say it.

I nod, resigned to spending hundreds more dollars on diapers. After Rylee pooped on the grass and Oakley peed all over Bella's new flower beds before demanding an M&M, I think we're both on the same page here.

"We'll try them again when they're three. Or, you know, thirteen."