CHONIES

Well, what do you call them, then? We had been calling underwear in our house “undies” as long as I can remember. Last week I was taken by surprise when Olivia corrected me, not once, not twice, but three times:

Can you go get your undies?

“NO, CHONIES”

Are you wearing your Dora undies?

“Dora CHONIES, Mama”

Where are your undies?

“NO, my CHONIES”

You get the point. The girls learn Spanish at daycare. Sometimes I cannot understand them because, well, I really only know uno through diez, burrito, taco, no habla espanol, and maybe a few other bad words that Josh has taught me...and now I am proud to say that I know the Spanish word, even if it is considered slang, for underwear: chonies. I don't even know if I am spelling it right.

Sometimes it is hard to understand the little O, but this word rolls off her tongue easily as she is so PROUD to not be wearing the saggy dipey pants during the day anymore. We try to give her the pull-ups for naps and bedtime being that they are thinner and you can pull them on like undies - excuse me - CHONIES. I hear this word often, maybe a little too often.

While having two children now out of diapers and using the toilet is a huge accomplishment (you should have seen Josh and I dancing down the diaper aisle at Costco – “we don’t need no diapers, na na na na na na!), it is presenting some slight problems:

• 4 people to 1 toilet is definitely not a good ratio to have in one’s home
• More often than not, there is pee pee on said stand-alone toilet
• Adding to the above item, you often don’t realize you have sat in it until it is too late
• We are going through TP like wildfire
• I have to sacrifice my own relief so that my child can go first and not have an accident in front of the toilet (or on my feet)

Remember how I mentioned the little toilet at IKEA a few posts ago? It would be uber cool to get one of those and install it next to the big one. Yours. Mine. Mommy and Daddy Toilet. Bea and Olivia Toilet. Done. Also, Olivia likes to sit on the toilet every half hour, and I'm not sure yet if it is because she has a super small bladder or because she is afraid of having an accident. We spend a lot of time in the bathroom these days.

Based on the fact that we are nearly out of diapers for good, I decided to do a little calculation. Bea was potty trained at almost three years to the day. Taking an average of 8 diapers a day for three years is 8,544 diapers, my friends. Now for Olivia we'll take the same 8 diapers a day for 2 years and three months, which comes to 6,416 diapers. Approximate total number of diaper changes equals 14,960. Holy bejessus. That's a lot of diapers. If you told me at my first Bea diaper change that we'd go through that many diapers, well, I could have possibly shed a tear. I didn't change the diapers single handedly, but I did partake in large number. I am probably going to sit here for another minute scratching my head at these diapers numbers, so I'll just leave you with a couple of photos of my diaperless, but clothed, children...