Potty Training 101

I've been potty training the twins (it's been a long ongoing process) and this is how it really is potty training 3 year old (I started right before their 3rd birthday) twin boys.  We started the potty training journey in the middle of summer.  I thought it would be a perfect time to start because they could pee outside.  First of all, we live pretty far off a road, and we're surrounded by trees, so no one can even see us.  So I decided to not buy pull ups (a first time ever thing for me, I used them with all my other kids) because it would just be so expensive for twins and the fact that they are just a glorified diaper.  Anyways, I put them in undies and let them run around the yard, in just undies.  They peed through them all. the. time!!  I had a stash in the garage, so I didn't need to go inside to get more undies.  I gave them control of where they wanted to pee.  So they chose various trees, bushes, plants, rocks, and off the deck (watch out below!!!).  And talk about praise, I backed up every pee on the tree, with a nice piece of candy, which I also had stashed in the garage next to their extra undies.  They were starting to get the hang of it.  It was exciting to see them make progress.  
Now, when we go away, public restrooms are a cool place to visit.  It never fails, they want to try out every public bathroom they can.  At home, they never tell me they have to go potty, but the minute we step into Aldi, Target, Meijer, and anywhere that is not home, they tell me they have to go potty.  I don't know what it is with them and public restrooms, maybe it is the way the toilet flushes and they don't have to wait for it to refill to flush it again, maybe it's the stalls with the locks on the doors, maybe it's the soap dispenser, or maybe it is the hand dryer (they love to put their hands and then heads underneath it).  I have no idea why they like it, they just do.  I took Alli to get her haircut where her Aunt Leah works.  It's a little bit aways, so when we got there I was going to have the boys go potty.  Public restroom, so no problem, right!?!  This bathroom was the kind with no stalls, just one potty and a sink.  I get sick of how long it takes to have one go and then the other, so I had the bright idea of standing the boys on opposite sides of the toilet, so they could go at the same time.  Reed starts to go and misses the toilet by a long shot, but had a perfect arch over the toilet and was drenching his brother, Luke, in pee.  Thankfully, it landed mostly on Luke's waist and his pants were down, so it only got on his clothes a little bit.  Reed and I started to laugh, and Luke looked at us and started to laugh too.  I think he was pretty startled by being peed on and didn't know what to make of it until we started to laugh.  Lesson learned, do not have little boys stand directly across each other while peeing, it's a recipe for disaster.  
As I mentioned earlier, the boys love public restrooms.  We went grocery shopping last week and they decided they needed to go potty at Meijers.  I took them to the one in the back of the store, so there wasn't as many people in there.  Good thing too.   I hauled my cart in there (it had no merchandise in it, just Alli and the twins).  It was one of those coveted bench seat carts and I didn't want anyone to take it.  I had to basically jam that cart through the door and it took up the entire restroom aisle.  We were the only ones in there, so I didn't feel bad about my cart blocking all the sinks and the hand dryer.  So, I learned my lesson to do one at time, and I was helping Reed in one of the stalls.  Luke went into the handicapped one and locked the stall door!  Then, every mother's worst nightmare, Luke started to army crawl under the door, ON THE GROUND! So gross!  I tried to get a hold of that little boy and he squirmed back into the locked handicapped stall.  I wrapped it up with Reed and then went to try to get Luke out of that stall.  I told him to get out of there, but he said he was peeing.  I couldn't tell, so I tried to peer through the cracks of the stall and couldn't see anything because the toilet was so far away from the stall door.  I heard him flush and he got the door unlocked all by himself (I breathed a sigh of relief because I didn't want to crawl under there to get him out), and I promptly took him and washed his germy public bathroom hands.  They had fun at the hand dryer and we finally got out of there and finished up grocery shopping.
We are still potty training, everyday gets a bit better (famous last words!!!).  I'm sure I'll have many more fun incidents potty training these boys.