“I do it myself, Mommy!” Every parent of a toddler is familiar with this toddler mantra. It’s a sign that your baby is growing up, and often (but not always) a sign that they actually can do things by themselves. After two to three years of doing everything from feeding, bathing, playing, and entertaining, to wiping bottoms, and nursing boo-boos it can be an intoxicating phrase indeed.
The only problem is that they usually want to do things alone that require your help, and revert to chanting “Help me, Momma! Help me!” when attempting the simplest of tasks. (Such as putting on Crocs - somehow Emma always manages to get them on the wrong feet.) Maybe it makes sense in their tiny little brains, but as an adult I am baffled when one of my children thinks they can walk to a friend’s house by themselves but need help blowing their nose.
Once my children started putting on their own shoes in the morning-quite often, incorrectly- it shaved a good 20 minutes off of our prep time for leaving the house. When they started buckling themselves into their own car seats, we all got to sleep in an hour later in the morning.
Potty training was worth every second I invested. After almost three solid years of cleaning up poop and pee from all over my house, using every public restroom from Savannah, Georgia to Mount Pleasant, and constantly hearing, “Mo-mmy, I need go potty,” my children can finally go to the bathroom without me. They can wash their hands, flush the potty and leave me alone for five minutes. Five minutes- which when repeated 12 times a day, times two kids adds up to a whole lot of extra time for Mommy! (About two hours, if your math skills are rusty.)
Of course, I still have to brave public restrooms with them, but when we are at home it is fabulous. No more stopping in the middle of cooking dinner to wipe a booty. No more cleaning up pools of urine from my hardwood floors- finally they can do it on their own.
So I didn’t think anything of it, when we were at our next-door neighbor’s house visiting in their garage turned neighborhood hang-out when Emma, my 3-year old, said, “Mommy, I need to go potty.” I started to get up to go with her, when she held up her little hand and said, “I do it, Mommy. I do it all by myself.” I shrugged and let her go.
We are over at Buck and Connie’s house on a regular basis and I had taken Emma to the restroom there enough times to know that she knew the drill: go straight to the potty, only use a little toilet paper, wash your hands, dry your hands, turn the light off, and come back outside without touching anything. Emma was only gone to the restroom for a few minutes, and as soon as she finished it was time for us to go home. A couple of hours later I was relaxing in my bathtub when the phone rang. It was Connie laughing hysterically, telling me she had just been inside for the first time since we left and walked into her bathroom to find the water in her sink going at full blast.
I apologized, and told her if she couldn’t afford her water bill this month and her water gets turned off, that she was welcome to bring a towel and some shower shoes and come over for a bath. Apparently, I still have some work to do in the area of bathroom protocol.

(Read Robin’s blog online at www.robinschicks.com or e-mail her at zebandrobin@hotmail.com).