I'm going to start out this blog entry with a simple fact: I can be a total fuckwit when it comes to parenting. And for so, so many reasons. Today, my fuckwittiness has to do with potty training Mackenzie.
Mackenzie is three now. She can talk in paragraphs (for really extended periods of time), keep up with her brothers, change her own outfit (5 times daily), manipulate a situation so it best serves her (with a smile on her face and a hug at the ready). The girl is growing up- sassy, strong-willed and adorable- and she's even starting preschool in less than two months.
But she will not poop in the potty.
This has been going on for some time. We've tried everything. Incentive (bribery?) in the form of a few M&Ms. When that didn't work, we upgraded to a bag of fruit snacks. Didn't work. We took a break from the whole thing and revisited it after a month or two. Didn't work. We read books about kids learning to use the potty while she was sitting on the potty. I made up dorky songs about pooping. Shawn and I took turns sitting on the bathroom floor for what felt like (and probably was) hours, trying to keep her company and entertain her. I took her to the store and let her pick out two big, toy babies (her favorite) and a bunch of little toys to put in her "Treasure Box". At home, I put them where she could see them, but couldn't reach them as a reminder of the awesomeness she would receive if she would only just poop in the potty. One day, I promised one baby, two treasure box toys, chocolate AND fruit snacks all at once if she would do it.
She resisted.
As soon as she was away from my watchful, dissecting (and, okay, sometimes easily distracted) eyes, she would find somewhere cozy and private and poop in her pants. When I was no longer willing to scrape her 'accidents' out of her brand new underwear, I started throwing her cute Dora and Hello Kitty underwear in the garbage, thinking she might get upset about it and stop pooping to save her favorite underwear. But her stubbornness prevailed. She said, "I don't want those underwear." (And when I promised candy, she said, "I don't like candy." LIES!)
So I reverted back to pull-ups in an attempt to save my sanity.
Last night, I sat with her for a long time, on and off, because I knew she had to go. She wouldn't. This morning, I rushed her to the bathroom immediately upon awakening. A no-go. When we got home from the store, I took off her pull-up. While we were playing outside, she asked for her juice. I went inside to find her cup, and within a minute or two I realized what I (or she?) had just done. I RAN back outside, but by the time I got to her, she was standing next to a pile of poop in the grass.
And that's when I lost it.
Any bit of patience that I formerly possessed was gone. I yelled. I was pissed. I let my frustration out and I put her to bed for her nap without her sippy cup or her favorite blanket or any kind of loving gesture. And then I slammed her door. And when she started singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", I pounded on her door and said, "AND NO SINGING IN THERE!!" (Kind of reminded me of that saying-- "If Mama ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy".)
I went downstairs with my raging energy and cleaned any messes I could find (because that's what I do with raging energy. If I can't run away from the house, screaming, then I clean stuff). And when I started to level off, I.... got.... sad. Because parenting is a day-in, day-out test of sanity and temperament, and that moment, among other recent moments with each one of my kids, was a looooooowwwww point. And those low points add up. So I let the boys play video games and I hid in my room and cried.
And no, this isn't about how parenting is miserable and impossible and a general fuck all. In fact, I even had a few laughs while I wrote this, listening to Colton and Casey giggle at each other. Here's a sample of them discussing the PS3 games they just bought with their yard sale/lemonade stand money (Colton chose Minecraft and Casey chose Sonic):
COLTON: My game is cooler, because in Minecraft, you can build things, like your own city. And you can die.
CASEY: But dude, my guy is blue, and blue's my favorite color.
So... I'm not even sure why I'm recording these sentiments today. I have a tendency to view time past with my kids from a nostalgic place, free from daily irritation and foibles. Maybe I need make sure that I can look back and see the reality of it, so that in twenty years I can level with the mom in the grocery store wrangling psychotic children and doing the best she can. So that I don't stand back in judgement and think, "My kids NEVER acted like that", or "I NEVER would have reacted that way". Because, good Lord, it happens. It happens on your good days and it happens (in a bigger, uglier way) on your bad days. And learning to navigate through that as a parent, just like they're learning to navigate their worlds, can be next to impossible sometimes. And fun and exciting and all that shit, too, but that's a blog for another day. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment