More Potty Stuff
In which I lose my mind and find it again
Well, it has been a couple of weeks since I started potty training but let me pick up where I left off. Day One was in the books and I had my one golden drop, so we had passed the major hurdle and were well on the road to success, right?
Wrong. Unless you count success as a working wash machine that makes all the clean-up easier. That’s definitely a blessing I was grateful for, but Days Two and Three passed by in much the same fashion as the first. I was getting an eye ache from staring so intently at my daughter. She was getting a case of nerves from my staring.
I discovered a few things about her personality and preferences during this time and came to a whole new depth of understanding about our baby girl. First of all, this child is part camel. I should have guessed it by the way her dad drinks seltzers, but she definitely inherited his bladder of steel…not mine, which is roughly the size of a gumdrop. Particularly when we were out and about and not in the familiarity of her own home, she demonstrated an impressive ability to store all the liquids she had sucked from her sippy cup in some mysterious body compartment. Maybe that’s what those tadpole tummies are for, I don’t know. I’m not a pediatrician. All I know is she was calm as a cucumber during a timeframe in which I would have made three bathroom trips myself.
Another problem we encountered was the Deer in the Headlights Phenomenon. She wasn’t afraid of the potty anymore, but she would freeze like the above namesake and wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do to get that liquid into the potty so she could get the coveted M&M. The book talked about using relaxation techniques or sneaky-smart ideas like blowing bubbles, blowing into a straw, or making the child laugh. I spilled the bubble solution and she just drank the water through the straw, so we were down to laughing. Turns out, stuffed animals pretending to sneeze and fall off things did the trick! We had some good luck catching pees in the potty thanks to Bear and Kitty.
We somehow graduated past Step 1 (aka solitary mommy confinement) and now got to add Outings. This means you catch a pee in the potty and immediately get clothing on the toddler. You may leave your barracks for 15 whole minutes! You are free as a bird. Why, just consider the possibilities- you could drive to McDonalds to get an iced latte in celebration if you want, or pick up stamps at the post office, or drive halfway to Walmart and then turn around. The sky’s the limit!
Now, our camel of a toddler was doing quite well at these small outings. I even fudged the numbers a bit and drove all the way into the Walmart parking lot before heading back home since she was so continent. (Rebellious, I know.) But then we went to my in-law’s house for dinner and discovered a few problems with camels.
Camels are great, unless they are also camels that need their own personal yert behind a sand dune to do their business in private. I didn’t realize that privacy was a big deal in the mind of a toddler. I mean, the kid has no problem running around the house with her cute butt cheeks jiggling. Clothing is just a nuance to her still. But going to the restroom when someone is watching- SCANDALOUS! This clicked for me when she kept ‘coincidentally’ having accidents behind Nonna’s curtains or running off into a corner by herself and magically a puddle would appear. Sure, I had just taken her to the potty a million times and tried my tricks, but our little camel needed one step more to make her feel at ease.
Very well. I became a yert-maker on the spot. I set about rearranging our bathroom, and I put her little potty in the corner of the bathroom against the tub. When I put her on it, I simply draw the shower curtain in front of her creating her own private boudoir/powder room. Success! She can open and close the curtains at will and loves to play peekaboo until it’s time to get serious about business.
All these lightbulb moments make it sound like we were doing awesome at this potty training thing. I wish! It was mostly one step forward, two steps back, and the week had worn down my last nerve. I had laundry up to my eyeballs, I imagined I heard piddles on the floor at every turn, and I constantly wished for someone to hand me a strong Moscow mule.
Worse, it was now the weekend and a non-negotiable Outing was looming: Sunday Mass. This meant two whole hours away from home, in which I was imagining no less than 6 outfit changes, the same amount of soaked panties, puddles on the pews, puddles on the church floor, silent judgment from grouchy Massgoers, and a possible ruined carseat. Yikes! In my neurotic state, I developed a plan that I thought was foolproof. During the homily, I would take her out to the car where I had placed her little potty and a blanket tent, and I would read books to her and she would go potty and everything would be great.
I did indeed take her to her new throne room, and she had a blast playing in the blankets and listening to me read the books, but she didn’t go one drop. By the time I went back in the church, I was flustered and upset and had missed everything up to the Holy Holy Holy! The rest of Mass I couldn’t focus on anything except watching her for signs of needing the potty- so much for prayer. Then we went home and I put her on the pot and she still didn’t go. Fine. Now I was getting annoyed and worried. We ate breakfast and I decided I was going to take my coffee and a stack of books into the bathroom and we weren’t coming out until she went!
Thus did I get entangled in a power struggle with a 21-month-old, which started with cajoling, moved on to threats, and escalated to her yelling in my face in anger. I, like the mature adult I am, glared at her, stamped my foot, and vehemently shouted a naughty word. In the haze of red that was blurring my field of vision, my husband’s concerned and bemused face appeared. I handed our sobbing tot over to him and resisted the urge to break the coffee cup on my way out the door. I needed to weed something (*primal snarl*).
As I weeded, I calmed down. This was just potty training, for Pete’s sake- and here I was getting my own undies in a bunch, as my dad would say. I was putting too much stock in perfection and creating unreasonable expectations for myself and trainee. It was time to let go and not worry so much. I needed to accept the puddles and remember that this was a learning process.
I went back inside with a changed attitude and the resolve to let go of the control. Let’s see how we do in the next chapter, shall we?