toddlerspit

The outrage.

If Eric is going to pull this kind of crap every time I go out of town for a few days, it’s OVER!  Look at this!  He lets the girls do fun things like play princess dress up?  They got to go to a birthday party?  He’s been reading to them, for heaven’s sake!?!

Now they are going to expect to be entertained every five minutes.  They’re going to expect me to be involved in their lives.  To have fun.

This must stop.  I’m putting my foot down. 

I. Mean. Business.

Speaking of business, it’s true!  Nolie is taking the short route to Pottytown!  She is wearing undies during the day, and going pee-pee on the potty.  (Turdville, unfortunately, is still a few miles away.  We have a long layover in Crap-in-the-Pants first).  She’s also sleeping in her big girl bed at night. 

What is that I smell?  The sweet whiff of victory?  Toot, toot, a rooty!  But I mustn’t get too excited.  It did, after all, take us nearly nine years to potty-train our first born.  It’s possible this train we’re on will begin heading in reverse at any time.  But I hope not.  The forward motion is nice.

Potty Time!

Addie has double ear infections again, Nolie has bronchitis, and Eric’s got another sinus infection, but who cares?

ADDIE IS POTTY TRAINED!

Cue confetti.  Cue big band.  Cue newspaper headlines.

We’ve had almost one whole week of peeing and pooping in the potty.  She is only wearing a diaper at night, and I’m already giving the last stack of pull-ups the middle finger, nah-nah-nah-nah-nah dance. 

Oh, we’ve had a few little accidents here and there.  But for the most part?  Golden.  Beautiful, beautiful pee and poop in the potty.  We can leave the house with underwear on.  She isn’t having accidents at school.  I put her in her room for her nap in the afternoon–prime pooping time–and she’ll rattle the door open a few minutes later because she pooped in her little port-a-potty.  And didn’t use it to fingerpaint all over the walls with.  Hallelujah, ring the bells. 

Addie will go on big people toilets, no problem.  But I’m finding using the little port-a-potties to be a good intermediate step.  For example, now that the weather’s nicer, one of Addie’s favorite things is to sit pants down on the front porch, on the potty, and yell and wave at people walking by.  Awesome.

And how’s Nolie, you might ask.  Why don’t you ever write about Nolie, you might ask.  Is she being neglected, ignored, shunned?  Nah.  No way.  She’s great, and is the source of a lot of joy at the moment.  She is round, round, round, and laughs a lot.  More than anything, she loves other kids.  She wants to be touching Addie, or mouthing her, or pulling her hair at all times.  More than anything, Nolie wants to be up and walking and talking with the rest of us, and if she’s ever pissed, it’s at the inadequacies of her little baby body, which won’t permit her to chase after Addie and slobber on her.

She does have bronchitis, though, and has had it for weeks now, apparently.  I took her to the doctor last month, but they said it was just a cold.  I took her back in today (they know us all by first names there, now) and it’s bronchitis.  Why didn’t I just take Nolie to the doc when I took Addie in on Monday, and found out she’s probably going to need tubes in her ears if she keeps getting ear infections?  I don’t know.  Denial, maybe.  Reached my limit, perhaps.  Foul, foul mutating germs.

Hmmm.  Maybe I should stop letting the kids lick the toilets.  Maybe I shouldn’t let them play with cat poop anymore.  Maybe I shouldn’t take them to eat at the Booger Shaq anymore.  I can just imagine what those doctors are thinking.  Oh, well.  We’re just fortifying their immune systems, right?

More toilet adventures today.

I decided on Thursday it was time to try big-girl underwear again with Addie.  As many of you know, I have a small, dark nugget of hatred in my soul for pull-ups, which get marketed to parents as the answer to potty training.  Teach your kid to pee without worrying about any of the accidents! they tell us.  Whatever.  WhatEVER.  If you had given me a couple of toothbrushes and a box of pull-ups, I could have single-handedly cleaned up the Exxon Valdez oil spill, those things are so absorbent.  In other words, Addie couldn’t really tell when she was going pee in them, because they so effectively wicked moisture away from her bladder.

But Addie’s nearing her third birthday, and we may also be moving soon.  Many preschools require your kid be potty trained before they accept her.  And, to be frank, I was just feeling like it was time to try again.  So we did.

She hit about 50% of the time Thursday, which I think was great.  I approached it this way:  even the accidents were good, because it helped her to figure out when she was peeing, at least.  The rest of the time, we were able to make it to the potty.  I also installed the little kid potties in the living room and in her room again, to give her the greatest chances for success.  Sometimes just changing things up can set the reset button enough to get things moving again.

Yesterday, Addie was in pull-ups again (I was at work and Eric had both kids at the zoo, and I don’t blame him for not wanting to deal.  But it was a set-back.  She didn’t go potty once).

Today, it was back to underwear only, and she has gone pee consistently on the potty, with only two little accidents.  More importantly, she pooped on the potty, which feels like a benediction from Christ himself.  “Here, my lamb,” he says.  “I anoint you with a big, round turd in your kid-sized potty.”  Sweet, sweet blessing.  A crapacle from heaven.

Anyway, I’ve been affirming and affirming that Addie is potty trained, and voila.  It’s happening.  Oh, I know this is a sometimes rocky road–believe me, do I know.  But I feel like this time will stick.  I’m more relaxed, Eric’s getting on board with the program, and most importantly, Addie is older and wiser.

It is going to mean Eric and I are going to have to be more on the ball, though.  I was sitting with Addie this morning while she was trying to poop on the potty when all of a sudden I had to go.  So I tag-teamed with Eric and ran to the downstairs bathroom, where I too late discovered we were out of toilet paper.  Addie’s grunting and pushing upstairs, Nolie’s screaming in the living room wanting to be picked up, and I’m stranded, yelling for Eric to bring me t.p. 

“I love living with three women,” said Eric as he passed the t.p. through the door to me, at last.  Just wait till the girls get their periods, I was thinking, and you have to fetch them tampons.  You’ll be yearning for these halcyon days where poops were a big deal.

Addie still doesn’t care ONE whit about going pee on the potty.  And we’ve pretty much let that be okay with us.  We make sure she has a step near the potty so she can go when she wants to, and we offer to take her to the potty a few times a day, but she’s just not that excited about it.  And so it goes.

What’s weird is that I was really panicking about this for a while.  Oh no, I’d say, Addie is going to be three and she’ll still be in diapers!   All of her little toddler friends are going to gang up on her, kicking her and pulling her hair and taunting her for being such a baby!  They’ll be peeing and pooping like pros, and there she’ll be, saggy drawered and stinky.  Other parents will smirk and gloat, her teachers will hold her back, family services will knock on our door!

Obviously, that is not what’s happening.  Addie is going potty pretty frequently, if unpredictably.  And so what?  So we buy diapers for a few more months.  I’m really starting to think that we are going to wake up one morning, and we’ll walk into the bathroom, and there she’ll be, seated on the throne, letting a big old duker splash below.  And that will be that.  She will have just decided she’s going to do it, and she’ll do it, and we’ll wonder what all the big whoop was about.

Isn’t Nolie lucky, that we will have learned all these lessons with Addie?  I mean, she is going to be one laid-back kid because we will have just mellowed the fuck out, already.  We’ll probably have to peel her off of the floor with a spatula she’s going to be so relaxed.  We’ll be pulling the bong out of her hands at six.  We’ll be having to put the paddles to her chest to get her to go play she’ll be so chill.  Peeing on the potty will so not be a big deal. 

What the heck?  Someone deposited this strange baby in our house, a baby who sleeps unswaddled, who coos and shrieks herself to sleep, now, without any contorted machinations from us.  Who is this strange child, masquerading as our Nolie?

Four glorious naps and counting; only one night-waking last night, with no need for a swaddle.  A rested, happy baby.  Seeming just a little bit older today. 

What?  What is that smell?  Is that freedom?  I think it might be.  I think it might be the glorious odor of sleep, wafting its way down the halls of possibility, coming my way.

Could potty training her older sister be far behind?  Dare I hope?

Big day for the Schneider kids.

Hallelujah, raise your hands, the roof is on fire, because we seem to be back on the slow train to toiletland.  Addie has been showing some disdain for wet pull-ups the last few days, and on the way home from school yesterday, she initiated a conversation about how big girls go potty in the toilet.

Not wanting to get my hopes up, I debated with myself over what such signs might mean.  Is now the time to push forward?  Or will she just push back again, leaving us firmly stalled at the pull-up depot?  Could this be the window of opportunity we were hoping for?  Our second chance at winning the toilet trophy?

Well, it seems it might be.  It’s only been a few days, but here’s the data:  I’ve been wanting to set her up for success, so I’ve only been asking her to use the potty at times I know she’ll need to pee (a few minutes after eating, before nap, before bath).  She’s resisted a few times, but I’ve given her the choice of going potty on the big-person potty or on her little potty–the old change-the-choice trick.  Going potty is the given, which potty she uses is up to her.  Anyway, she’s been going a few times a day.  Then, today, she was dry almost the whole day, with one small exception, which she told me about right away. 

I view this as progress.  I’m not going to over-push or put her in her cloth underwear just yet, but I am giving lots of even praise and trying to give her lots of ways to succeed.  Geesh, I hope this works.

And Nolie?  Nolie must have had a big night last night, because she woke up this morning almost able to sit up on her own and wanting to play with Addie.  By play, I mean kick and grab at Addie’s legos, which is sweet justice after Addie has destroyed every cool lego structure her dad and I have ever built.  Now she’ll have her own Godzilla to contend with.  Nolie’s interest in toys seems to have multiplied over night, and she is grabbing at and mouthing everything she can convince her fingers to clutch.

I’m understating the HUGENESS of this.  Just yesterday, Nolie was only content in a tight, could-barely-breathe swaddle.  She would occasionally hit herself in the eye with an errant fist, and wasn’t babbling too much.  Now, she’s in the ring, for real–talking, grabbing, squealing.  I anticipate walking tomorrow; by the weekend?  Everest.  Anyway, it’s an inkling that someday these children might play together, might amuse one another (and yes, I know, scream at and fight with one another).  But this inkling is exciting, and I think it makes Nolie just a little more real to Addie.  And to me.

And, I swear to God, it sounded like Nolie said “mama” today.  Oh, I know she doesn’t know what the sounds mean yet.  But it’s pretty cool to hear some consonants, and those just happen to be my favorites.

Also, in case you were wondering, yesterday was Puesday, and yes, Nolie did poop.  While sitting on my lap, the minute I finished typing this blog.  It’s uncanny.

I’m sorry to do this to you, dear readers, but this will be yet another post about…you guessed it!  Poop.

I hear Addie stirring after a long nap this afternoon, and go in to check on her.  Little did I know that she would be stirring her own poop.

Yep.  She had yet again pulled off her pull-up (grrr….) and on her pillow was a perfect, unmarred impression of her butt.  In poop. 

I’m not sure about the mechanics of this.  Did she poop in her pull-up, then roll around on her butt for a while to get it evenly spread on both cheeks, then carefully remove her pants, make the buttprint on her pillow, then stand up, making no other marks anywhere? 

Sheer artistry.

So, I walk in, and she’s standing there, her poopy pants around her ankles, poop all down her legs, holding her arms out, looking horrified, like Carrie at the prom.

To my credit, I did not freak out.  I just put her in her bath, talked to her again about what a good idea it would be to poop in the potty, and threw a load of laundry in. 

I wanted to freak out.  Oh, did I want to.  But I couldn’t–she was so bummed (ha-ha) at the situation that I couldn’t make it worse for her.  When I gently suggested that next time she could go poop in the potty she said, “Yes, Mommy.  I will go poop in the potty.”  And I know she probably won’t.  Still, I was proud of her for thinking it might be a good idea.  There’s always hope.

Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago, in this post, that I was rejoicing over our decision to take a break from potty training Addie?  Wasn’t I saying that I had learned my lesson, and that I wouldn’t try to push her into it, and that if there was going to be a battle of the wills, she would win?  Wasn’t I?

And yet, that old itch is back.  That itch to control and schedule and cross off the list.  That fear of inadequacy:  why isn’t my perfectly delightful, intelligent, wonderful child potty trained yet?  Why do I care so much?  Am I really this obsessed with poop?

A few nights ago, Eric had to remind me why we were taking a break from pottyland.  He looked at me, quizzically, and said, “Wasn’t it just last week that we decided not to worry about it for a while?”  Yes.  It was.  “Let’s just give it a rest, babe,” he said.  “It’s driving us all crazy.”  Right.

But here’s the problem.  All of these stories of other people potty training so easily come to mind.  My mom potty training me in the blink of an eye when I was two.  I just saw other kids in daycare doing it, and voila!  For a few measly m n’ m’s, I was potty trained.  Some woman in the mall told me she had both her kids trained by the age of one.  One, for God’s sake.  Then, all the women on Babycenter who are “so proud of my little guy” for pooping in the potty after just one weekend of training. 

Then there’s this problem:  I hate pull-ups, in case you haven’t noticed.  They’re expensive, and Addie can pull them off when she has a big poop in them, and they’re horrible for the environment, and they blow up and explode into a million pieces when you accidentally wash them with your laundry.  But we seemed to be locked into pull-up mode.  I wouldn’t hate them so much if they weren’t just glorified diapers.  But that’s all they are, and they’re not helping with training anything. 

Well, I guess we’re trained to buy them.

And then, of course, there’s the small, grinchy, Gollum-ish part of me that would like to win just one frickin’ war with my toddler.  I’d like to be able to point down at her, like Zeus on a mountaintop, white hair blowing in the gathering storm, long robes fluttering about me, and command her to use the potty.  Because she can.  She’s physically able to do it.  She just won’t. 

This pisses me off.  Which is probably at the core of my potty training issues (and, let’s be honest.  They’re really my issues–not hers).  It makes me mad that this child could make things so much easier for everyone by just using the potty, by at least trying to use the potty, but refuses to do so.  And I’m completely powerless in the face of her awesome obstinacy.  I am completely bowed before the awesomeness of her expression of individuality.

I am, in short, floored by the fact that she is a different entity from me, individuated and whole, with a will of her own.  Maybe that’s why I’m having such a hard time giving this up.  Her saying no when I want her to say yes is a pretty good expression of the fact that this kid–whom I love so fiercely and dearly–is her own person.  And will someday leave me.  Let’s just hope she’s potty trained when she goes.