Having twins is a lesson in humility

There's something that is really interesting about having twins: they never let you get too proud of your parenting skills. On the flip side, you never get too down about your parenting skills either.

My boys have always been very different in personality, even before they were born. B-man was the wild child, staying up all night kicking me and doing somersaults in the middle of ultrasounds while N-man quietly got into the proper position and just waited patiently for it to be time to be born.

With sleep issues, I always said it was lucky we didn't just have N-man. He's been such a good sleeper...we never had to do any sleep training with him. He just slept through the night. If he was our only baby, I probably would have been unbearable, bragging how easy it was to get him to sleep through the night. But luckily, we also have B-man, who has NEVER slept well. Ever. Up to and including today, at over 3 years old. He never let me get too much of a big head about my skills at getting kids to sleep. But on the flip side, I never felt too badly that he was so difficult. Since we had N-man, I knew that a lot of it was luck. Some kids either sleep well, or react well to your own parenting styles. They're easy, if you will. While other kids don't sleep well, or need you to try out a parenting style that perhaps isn't as comfortable for you.

We're having the same issue with potty training. We put the boys in underwear on Monday. Today is Friday. B-man has only had one accident in all that time. We said, "It's time to use potties now instead of diapers", and he was like, "sure, great idea." It was so easy. What's the big deal with potty training? That was SIMPLE!

Then we have N-man. He's only used the potty TWICE since Monday, and I'm pretty sure one of those was a mistake since he just couldn't hold it long enough to get up and go on the floor. That's a lot of cleaning up I've done this week. A lot of laundry. A lot of floor scrubbing. A lot of frustration for N-man and me. We put him back in diapers today as he's started crying when we try to make him wear underwear or sit on the potty. He's clearly not ready, and I can't think of anything to entice him to use the potty (we've tried bribing with many things...no luck).

So there we go, once again the boys have made sure I didn't get off too easily; that I didn't mistakenly think I was good at this parenting thing. But don't worry, I don't think I'm that terrible at it either. I guess I'm about 50% good, which isn't all bad :)

Random related thought: Did you guys see GWYNETH PALTROW left a message on my blog? Can you believe it? What? It wasn't the real Gwyneth Paltrow? Are you sure? I'm pretty sure she's taking time out of her busy Apple-raising schedule to give me potty training advice...

Random unrelated thought: Did you notice I changed up my blog list so that it sorts by most recently updated? I'm liking it better than my former alphabetical listing. It just seems more egalitarian. Says the girl who goes by What A Card, and always ends up at the bottom of those alphabetical lists :)