He actually fell asleep this way. Must be the rigors of potty-training. I feel like burying my head in the couch too right now. This is the fifth boy I’ve potty-trained, and let me tell you, it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s like training a bobcat to use the toilet. I’ve put off this training longer than my other boys because Cruz is so hard. Every child milestone has been tough with this kid.

The past few days, I’ve locked us both in the bathroom when I know it’s time. Cruz then runs in circles holding his butt and screaming. I promise him everything but the moon as I place his potty ring on the toilet seat. He’s having none of it, wailing like I’m beating him with a broom. Finally, I hold him kicking and screaming on the toilet. He actually kicked me in the face yesterday. But when it was all said and done, he did the deed and got his Fisher Price toy at Target for all my trouble. I considered buying myself a blazer for $39.99 along with the $14.99 toy for Cruz, but couldn’t imagine looking so nice when all I do is take care of stinky boys, scrub toilets (and scrub my hands with soap, I promise), and sell fruit for a living. Who needs a nice blazer for boys and farming?

A raincoat perhaps is needed for boys as I recall changing that first baby boy diaper and having my son pee on me. After diapering two baby girls, I can’t tell you how shocked I was the first time this happened with our oldest son.

A few years later, I realized when it comes to boys, it’s all about the burping, farting, pooping and peeing– the manliness of making your body do it the loudest, farthest, stinkiest, biggest with this mother determined to turn all this burping, farting, pooping and peeing into a quiet, private, civilized affair.

Doesn’t this benefit our society? Teaching boys they don’t need to use their bodies to pollute the air we breathe, the grass we walk on, the trees that provide us shade, and the bathrooms we ladies must use too?

I’ve been after my husband for years to rein in his sons. To join with me in teaching them to be gentlemen. In desperation, I’ve even thrown the WWJD (What would Jesus do) in his face.

“I think the disciples farted on each other, too,” my husband responded with a laugh.

“Well, I seriously doubt Jesus joined in this monkey business,” I said in my best church lady voice. “I’m sure our Lord spent some time teaching his disciples manners just like you need to teach your sons manners!”

The next day a man from our weekly Bible study stopped by. “Wow, your kid has some range,” he said to my husband, both men grinning proudly while watching our eight-year-old son pee off the front porch before the men settled into a serious conversation about the Bible standing out there on the lawn where the kid just peed. At that point, I threw up my hands.

So much for my expectations of Christian men helping me raise gentle sons. This is actually a dream dying for me, that my sons would be gentlemen. Because when I was ten years old, I decided the boys I raised would properly use the bathroom. Never, ever would they leave the toilet seat up. Their sisters and wives would thank me one day. Because there is nothing worse than falling into the toilet in the middle of the night when you’re half asleep because your brother left the toilet seat up. Having learned this from a father who always left the toilet seat up. I can’t tell you how many times I fell into the toilet trying to use the bathroom as a little girl. I even told my husband before I married him, “You must always, always, always put the toilet seat down for me, and promise that when we have boys, you will teach our sons to always put the toilet seat down for me, too.” I wanted to write this into our wedding vows.

To my husband’s credit, he has done this, the toilet seat is always down at our house. I just never expected the boys would pee all over the seat when it’s down. I’ve sat on more wet seats than I can count. The boys have even peed on top of the toilet lid instead of opening the lid. I think they think the toilet is a tree. Just an object you pee on. It doesn’t matter that the toilet lid is closed. You just cut loose when you step into the bathroom. Stop and spray seems to be the motto at our house. Honestly, I don’t even know if they stop walking, I think they just spray. I’m not kidding when I say I’m on my hands and knees twenty times a day wiping up the bathroom. Cleaning the walls and nearby tub and even the window sill. But the toilet seat is never left up, so in a way I’ve won. My trophy: the toilet I polish every day of my life.

My only goal now is to teach my boys to actually use the toilet, and I don’t care if the toilet seat is left up or down. My sons have peed on floors, on stairs, on the Christmas tree– oh, wait, that was poop under the Christmas tree– peed on the cat, the dog, their toys. The Fisher-Price pirate ship in the family room. Guess they decided they needed an ocean for their Fisher-Price pirates. They’ve peed in every parking lot in our town. The side of the road is one big pee stop for the Bicknell boys. On our way to Fort Bragg this summer all five boys piled out of the Suburban to pee. That’s when the three-year-old peed all over the six-year-old’s back. The poor six-year-old was soaked through. I had to dig fresh clothes out of a duffle bag while making the three older boys stop laughing because both the six-year-old and three-year-old were crying now, this before we could get back on the road to our vacation where the boys peed behind every rock on the beach. Sometimes they didn’t step behind the rock, they just peed in the surf.

Our oldest son, when he was small, even peed on his grandparents. This happened in the car after we picked the grandparents up at the airport. These East coast grandparents came out once a year to visit us. Luke, at four-years-old, was in the back seat with his two sisters. The grandparents were in the middle seat, and Scott and I in the front seat of our Expedition. Four adults having a nice conversation as we headed home on Highway 99. “Luke has to pee,” our oldest daughter informed us from the backseat.

“Help him use the pee pot,” my husband called back.

Immediately, the grandparents cried foul. They didn’t want a kid peeing in the backseat behind their heads. Too late, Luke had already whipped it out. Cami was trying to hold the pee bucket up for Luke, an old silver champagne bucket with a broken handle. I’d gotten the bucket at Goodwill for our tenth wedding anniversary. Polished it up all nice and shiny to surprise my husband one night with a nice anniversary dinner. After using it just that one time, without telling me, my husband turned the silver bucket into a pee pot for the kids. “It has a perfect rim for the girls to sit on,” he told me when I saw the pot in the car. The pot one of our girls was peeing in at the time like she’d done this all her life. All her five-year-old life. “Oh my gosh!” I cried. “That’s our champagne bucket!”

“No, it’s our pee pot,” my husband corrected me. “We never drink champagne. I hate champagne,” he said.

“This is just like our marriage,” I cried, smarting over all that work I’d done polishing that bucket for our anniversary. “From champagne to pee!” I wasn’t joking when I said it. I think I followed the statement with, “I want a divorce.” We barely made it through our tenth year of marriage with the champagne bucket becoming our car’s pee pot. For years we had that pee pot in our vehicle. It lasted longer than several SUVs we’ve owned.

After years in the car, the champagne bucket had a broken handle where it fell out of the car one day at school, horrifying our oldest daughter because it was her school and now all the kids would know she used a pee pot in the car. The pot was now rusting in the backseat. “He’s missing the pot!” Granny Joyce screamed as we zoomed down the highway with Cami holding the pee pot for Luke standing on the backseat trying to pee in the pot. Grandpa Tony started yelling too, which frightened Luke, and Luke began spraying the car. Mostly the middle seat where his grandparents screamed and cussed and kind of just lost their minds with Luke peeing all over them. My husband didn’t even slow down for this ruckus. I think he drove faster if my memory serves me correctly.

Needless to say, the East Coast grandparents’ visit started out a little slippery that year. I really think people born and bred out East are more buttoned up than West Coast people.

One of our West Coast born and bred sons even peed in the church fountain in the park beside the Santa Cruz cathedral. This is not buttoned up. Scott and I had our backs turned, Scott taking pictures of me holding baby Cruz standing in front of the cathedral when our other kids started screaming. Three-year-old G2 had jumped up onto the concrete fountain, dropped his drawers to his ankles, and added his flow to the flowing waters.

“Whose kid is that?” Scott asked the two nicely dressed ladies sitting on a nearby church bench giggling over this. “You kids need to go find your parents!” Scott called over to our six older children, pretending like they weren’t our kids at all. Like they were somebody else’s feral children desecrating the church grounds.”

I can’t tell you how many times my sons have embarrassed me by peeing in public. I’ve even had another mom chastise me in the Walmart parking lot–Walmart of all places– because my son was peeing on someone’s tire. I so wanted to tell this self-righteous mom, “The only reason that adorable little daughter in your arms won’t embarrass you this way is because she doesn’t have the right equipment for the job. And I wasn’t thinking about her adorable little daughter deprived of a pee wee. Because every mom of boys knows the pee wee is her son’s prized possession. They never let go of it. I was talking about the adorable little daughter’s brain. Boys and girls have different minds, seriously, I’m convinced of this. Or maybe boys just aren’t born with brains. They grow brains like they grow chest hair when they’re thirty or something.

Unlike my sons, my daughters were born with good sense. And good manners. They have never peed on anything. My girls don’t burp. I’ve never heard them fart. They quietly close the bathroom door behind them, and when they depart the bathroom it remains clean and fresh, most of the time even smells good.

Unfortunately, these lovely daughters no longer live with us. They’re all grown up. It’s just me and the boys now. Five boys and a big, manly husband. It’s like living with gorillas. I’ve even had a few meltdowns where I’ve called the boys and my husband exactly that: gorillas. And I’ve cried and pleaded with these males to leave the jungle and accept civilization. I’m not even kidding about this. “You are the worst of them!” I accused my husband one day when I was angry over our sons’ wild behavior. “You are like the silverback and all these little gorillas are learning from you!”

“They’re learning to be men,” My husband said firmly. “I will not raise pansy little church boys. Boys we’ve feminized. God needs real men in the church.”

“Well, real men don’t pee on grandparents and everything else on the planet!” I lashed back.

“You are right. We will teach them to pee in the toilet and always put the toilet seat down for their mama. Okay, Babe?” said my husband very sweetly.

“Thank you!” I cried, then I stomped down the hall, and slammed my bedroom door. I went to my prayer couch and picked up my Bible. Please, God, I prayed. Help me turn these little gorillas into gentlemen for you. Give me the strength to be a good mama to my sons. This is my labor for you, Lord.  

So happy Labor day to all you moms out there laboring to civilize your sons. And maybe your husbands, too. You deserve a medal. You deserve a day off. You deserve a nice, long, hot shower with only you using the bathroom. Your nice, shiny, fresh and foofy bathroom.