My bottom’s not working

Wednesday, September 22’10

After 10 years of daily wiping and changing bottoms, Mrs. Bennet had served her sentence. Thirty seven and a half thousand nappies later she was now a free woman. Miss Bennet Number Four – the last of the Bennet girls to master the given art of performing in the correct place – had finally announced very proudly “Mummy, my bottom’s working now!”
Having seen three children through the nappy-to-pant stage, Mrs. Bennet thought numbers four and five would be easy. She was wrong. Twin bottoms were a different matter. Two bottoms attached to two very different bodies. One would think that if one twin derriere had successfully progressed from the L stage to pass, then the other would follow. Not so in Spag and Bol’s case. It was Bol, the smaller twin who first decided she no longer wanted the restrictions of a nappy and instead opt to actually wear the chosen Dora the Explorer collection of pants instead of admire them from a distance. The Peppa Pig pant family remained in their cellophane wrapper for months and months. Spag liked to look at them. Wearing them was not high on her agenda. She much preferred spending time playing with her little people, having conversations with them and making them her friends. Bol liked being with real people and observed every move they made, so it figured that as she followed her mother into the bathroom every time nature called, she too wanted to sit on the big toilet. So she trained herself, announced what she wanted to do, took herself to the potty and did the business without any accidents. Bol desperately did her best to get her bigger sister by 20 minutes to follow suit, but Spag just congratulated her and decided that her twin could receive the glory, so long as she could get on with role playing. And so at 3 years and 4 months she finally allowed Peppa Pig out of the pant packet.
But as any mother knows just because the child in question has moved from changing mat to toilet seat does not mean that the word “mess” is eliminated from the vocabulary. Quite the contrary, it can in fact mean this word appears more and prompts a few choice words in response! Now Mrs. Bennet knew that this was not the case for all the little Miss Bennets. Bol had been a dream potty trainee. She took herself to the said pot, did her business and got rid of the evidence without spillage. She announced what she needed to do and did it – in the right place. Spag however had the laid-back approach to the pant wearing regime and if she needed to do her business and the bathroom was a little further than she cared to travel, she produced amidst her toys – often fumigating her Polly Pocket people. However she was on the right track. Accidents were only a handful a week now and at least Mrs. Bennet was saving money by not having to buy nappies. Perhaps she should put by what she was saving in a special toiletry collection bank, ready for the next expensive item which would affect the Bennet household. She knew it wouldn’t be long before the periods started and the volcano of hormones would start exploding. With six women suffering PMT, Mr. Bennet had no idea what was coming his way. Thirty-seven thousand nappies were nothing compared to the amount of sanitary towels required in the coming years. Mrs. Bennet could only feel sorry for her poor husband. It would be his nerves and not her own which would be severely tested.