Potty Training Courtesy of the Phone Company

Happy Fatherhood Friday everyone! After you've finished reading this post, be sure to "dial up" dad-blogs.com to hear from the great bloggers over there.

So we've been in our new house for almost two weeks now, and the only significant thing that doesn't work right is our phone.

It's weird. We can dial out, but for incoming calls the phone rings once and then goes dead without transferring to voice mail. (And with 3 boys age 5 and under it's "super easy" to get to the phone in one ring.

We have one of those "bundle packages" with cable, phone, and internet, and it's only the phone that's not working.

So after a week of trying to get ahold of the phone company (Mom-E seriously was kept on hold for 80 minutes once), we finally had a service call the other evening.

Amazingly, 3 DIFFERENT PEOPLE called from the phone company WITHIN A SPAN OF 15 MINUTES to ask, "Is your phone still not working? Do you want us to come?"

"Uh, yeah! Duh!"

(Could you imagine if 3 nurses from your doctor called 15 minutes before your appointment to ask, "Are you still sick? Do you really want to be seen by the doctor?")

There was a fourth call, but that was just asking us to participate in a survey about our phone service.

I told them it had never worked right and they were coming tonight to fix it. The pollster said, "Maybe I should call back another time?"

"You betcha."

So two techs came and in replaced or tuned up every phone related wire/cord/outlet, you name it. They even called "Mission Control" twice to have things "reset."

The net result can be summed up by one tech, who said, "I've never seen this problem before."

("Yes, I still want to see the doctor...as long as he doesn't say, 'I've never seen this problem before'.")

When it comes to phone and medical problems, I don't want them to happen, but if they do, I want them to be like vanilla ice cream: plain and ordinary. (That's not a slam. I love vanilla ice cream. And chocolate ice cream. Pretty much anything that ends in "ice cream.")

But I digress.

So about an hour into this 2-hour wasn't able to fix-it festival, Mom-E and Bab-E Brother have to leave to go to Target, leaving Big Brother, Little Brother, and I to "help" the repair technicians.

Big Brother, fortunately, is engrossed in his trains and matchbox cars, and pleasantly entertaining himself.

Little Brother, on the other, is tired and clingy, due to minimal nap time.

And lately, Little Brother has this "thing" about clothes in general jammies. His current average time spent wearing the same pair of (mismatched, with shirt on backwards) jammies, without screaming that he needs a "New shirt!" is about 5 minutes. It's about 2 minutes when he's tired.

And lately, whenever he soils his diaper (either flavor, and I'm not talking ice cream here), he takes it off IMMEDIATELY.

"Dad-E, did I get poo-poo on your shirt? You need a new shirt?"

"Why yes, I do."

So while hanging out in the same room as the repair techs, Little Brother decides he no longer wants to wear his diaper, and within 30 seconds is completely in the buff.

He concedes to wearing a pair of underwear, sans diaper, but that's it.

(Oooh, that's great. Soon-to-be wet carpet will only increase the difficulty of the repair process.)

When the repair techs have to go to the garage to look at a wiring box, Little Brother bolts out into the driveway and starts running around the repair van and yard, wearing only his underwear.

"Hi. We're your new neighbors. Our children are semi-nudists. You really should come over for dinner sometime. Oh, you don't have to wear bring anything."

"Dad-E, I'm cold."

"Yes, I would be, too."

Back upstairs we go.

2 minutes later, "Dad-E, I go pee-pee."

To my surprise, his underwear are only mildly wet. We race to the bathroom--while I hold him in that awkward hands-extended position--as to not get pee-pee on my shirt as well.

With great pride (for both of us), Little Brother completes his task in the potty. Amazingly, this is the bright spot of the evening.

Unfortunately, the repair techs were unable to complete their task, and must come back next week for Round 2. That's good, in a way, because we still have more potty training to do.

"Don't bother to call about the appointment. We can't answer the phone anyway."

The tech said he could give me either a pro-rated billing statement or a free premium channel.

"Do you have an ice cream channel?"

You know, some days I would like to thing that our lives are like those of any other family with several children.

And other days, I begin to think that I'm Charlie Brown. :)

Have a good weekend,
Stay dry,
Call me, except you can't,
Busy-Dad-E