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This morning I woke up (at 8:30am) to Sophia yelling “Owies! Owies! Momma come change the diaper?” I thought that might be the “sign” I needed that we should continue on with panties and potty-training and turmoil. I got out of bed with a weight in my stomach but went to get her, planning to change her into a pair of panties. She was happy to see me and wanted to go play Legos immediately. I told her that we needed to change her diaper first. She happily said “Sophia gets to wear panties? Keiki ones?” Someone gave us a book on counting in Hawaiian and there’s a “keiki” in it (Hawaiian for “child”); when I identified the girl on Sophia’s new panties as Strawberry Shortcake, Sophia began calling her “Keiki” (short for Cake?). I told her that she needed to go potty first, and then she could put on her Keiki panties. She looked almost scared and said “No! No potty. No!” So I asked her if she wanted to just put on her diaper instead, so that she could pee in the diaper. She didn’t hesitate, said “okay,” and got down on to the change pad.

I was so relieved to start the day with a fresh diaper. This meant that we could plan to go to the park together, and maybe even the grocery store, like we used to (I can't believe I'm getting nostalgic about a trip to the grocery store!)! And I could relax and wouldn’t have to spend so many ten-minute blocks huddled on the bathroom floor next to her little potty, one arm around Sophia and the other supporting Are you my Mother? or I Have to Go! or Mr. Brown can Moo, Can You? or Once Upon a Potty. She was totally content to get dressed and go on with her day. And so was I.

By the time we were en route to the park, it was as if the last three days had never happened. We were back in sync, laughing and singing and totally relaxed. I was shocked when she got out of the stroller, took a few steps, and then stopped. I asked her if she was pooping and she said “yeah… pee pees.” And then she looked down at the ground between her legs, as if she was expecting to see the pee pooling there. My heart sank. She had learned something in the last three days! And just now, we undid it. The reinforcement she probably needed just disappeared. It was probably a big mistake to put the diaper back on today. I feel like I can’t trust my judgment on this at all. I feel so lost!

We played for a while at the park, but she was very clingy. She wanted to hold my hand for everything. Since we started potty-training she’s been more clingy around the house, too. And she asks Ben for me, which is shocking, as she totally adores him and can’t get enough of him usually. I chose to take note of the change, but not dwell on it and enjoy the time outside to play closely together. As we were leaving the park, I noticed a large yellow butterfly flying near the path. I pointed it out to Sophia and squatted down next to her stroller so that our eyes were at the same level. We stayed like that for several minutes, taking turns pointing and exclaiming “it’s coming to us!” She said that she wanted to catch it and hold it and she asked me to get it for her. Something about the beauty of that moment made me want to burst. It was as if time had no meaning and the butterfly had called us to join in an unimportant and yet deeply good dance. And Sophia and I were on the same side again. We were watching, sharing, loving together. I got her out of her stroller and we chased the butterfly a bit, walking around in circles, looking up instead of looking where we were going. We let ourselves get lost in the beauty and it felt like perfect freedom… freedom which ended abruptly when Sophia said “Sophia needs carrots. Go home?” But I was reset and re-filled and somehow rested.

There’s been no more talk of panties today, but at a couple of diaper changes Sophia has insisted that she wanted to go potty, so we let her run to her potty, bare-bottomed, and sit there with her books by herself for a while. Eventually she’d say “all done!” and wash her hands and leave her empty potty to come back for her fresh diaper. A few times she announced “Sophia has gasses!” and I thanked her for telling me, and warning me before they came out. I still don’t feel totally good about going back to diapers, but I feel much better than I did when I was fighting with her to use the potty. There must be a better way to do all of this, and I’m determined to seek it out before our next try at this. Maybe it will be a gradual thing… maybe Sophia will show us a gentle way. Or maybe I’ll find some strength somewhere.

A couple of nights ago I read the two-page section on Toilet-training in our copy of Parenting with Love and Logic. It made me feel better and worse. Better, because they described exactly what Sophia was doing, so I don’t blame myself as much for Sophia’s behavior – it seems to be quite common:

Worse, because their solution – to keep things happy and light – is what I’ve already been trying to do, but it isn't helping her to pee in the potty. Maybe Sophia can tell that I’m faking it. Maybe I should have a shot of whisky every few hours just to keep things loose and light (just kidding!). I honestly think the best solution for me would be to go camping for a week – or to a friend’s farm – and let Sophia run around naked, getting used to pee running down her legs and how it feels just before that happens.

I don’t know why this whole process is so upsetting to me… maybe it’s the first thing that I feel like I really can’t help her to do…? I remember feeling like I couldn’t teach her to sleep, either. But I could close my eyes, slow my breathing, and try to lie absolutely still – and tell myself that she’d follow my example. I’ve been peeing on the potty with her, but that doesn’t seem to help at all. I’m hoping that taking some time off will be good for me, and in turn, be good for her. I’ll update you as anything potty-related comes up -- or down, as it were.

Sophia usually wakes around 6:30 or 7am, when Ben transfers her from her bed in his office to our bed with me. Sometimes she goes back to sleep with me, but never for more than 30 minutes. Well, this morning Ben left for work around 6:30 and Sophia and I slept in. In fact, she didn’t get out of bed until just after 10am! I think all of this potty-training is taking a lot out of her. When I finally got her up, I let her play for 5 minutes in her diaper before I caught myself and made us change her out of the diaper and into her panties. She was happy to do it. She had pooped in her diaper, so that lent a certain urgency to the change.

I’d wanted the goal for today to be for her to announce to me earlier on in the flow of the pee that she needed to go potty. Instead, after her first pee of the morning she looked down and said “that’s okay, that’s okay, Sophia. That’s okay.” So I repeated that back to her and then we got her a fresh pair of panties and wiped her legs with a damp cloth. Do I need to be firmer? Do I need to start saying “oopsie!” when she pees on the floor? I’m so afraid of making this time traumatic that I I’m afraid that I’m not giving her enough guidance, or setting boundaries for her in a helpful way. I mean, for her whole life, I've been telling her what to do and when -- even giving her words to express her fears and delights ("are you nervous about the slide?" or "this peanut butter is good stuff, man!"). I wonder if she's expecting me to guide her at the same time that I'm expecting her to guide me/us.

After she peed on the floor -- and I assumed she was empty -- we got her dressed and in the stroller and went to the coffee shop across the street (we get free drinks there because Ben works at their other location at school) to get me a coffee and then came straight back home. Today is the warmest day we’ve had all year, so I thought a cool bath was in order. She took a long bath (I encouraged its length as we were both blissfully unaware of her pee while she was in the water), and when it was over I put a diaper on her in preparation for her nap. But I’d forgotten that since she slept in so late, she wouldn’t be ready for a nap at the regular time. So I let her play around the house in her diaper for an hour before she went down for her nap (in her diaper). That was bliss. I felt like I had her back for a while…

I’m totally glad that we used cloth diapers – no regrets at all. But I have to say that I’m no longer convinced that cloth diapers will make potty training any easier. I think it probably makes the whole process harder. For Sophia’s entire life, she’s been peeing on cloth and feeling the wetness against her. So now, when she pees in panties, it doesn’t bother her at all. As far as she knows, she’s just wearing poorly-performing diapers.

...

Ben's putting Sophia to sleep now. I'm thinking about the day, trying to identify something, anything, that I learned from today's messes... I am so ready to give up. The only thing that went into the potty today was a bit of poop that landed there after having come out into her panties. I noticed that all of sudden she'd stopped talking or moving and was sort of shaking, so I asked her if she was pooping. “No.” I told her that I thought she was and that we should hurry to the bathroom so that we could get some poop into the potty. She wouldn’t budge, so I carried her there. She let me pull down her panties and she tried to sit, but by then I saw the poop and didn’t want it smeared all over everything, so I helped her to sit on the potty. It fell off in there and she stood up and said “all done!” She was so proud of herself. So I celebrated her and told her that I was so proud of her, too. Then she wanted to dump it into the potty. Smeary, gooey poop got all over the place.

Eventually, though, we got all cleaned up and a fresh pair of panties on. I decided to give her a smartie (candy) as a reward. Only 2 days ago I thought that was bribery with food and therefore a terrible idea. But I was spent. I was willing to try almost anything in order to get even a small sense of accomplishment. I told her that I had a special "pooping treat" for shen she pooped in the potty. She was really excited and kept saying "treat! treat for Sophia! treat for Sophia pooping in the potty." She hated the smartie. She spit it out and wanted to flush it down with the poop. Oops. I’m pretty sure we’re regressing here. So I think we should stop. We’ve given it three full days and we’re farther back than where we started. I am relieved, though, that she didn’t want to put on a diaper tonight to sleep in. She still wanted her panties. It didn’t take much to get her to lay down for her diaper, but still… I’m glad she still likes panties. We’ll see how we feel about it all tomorrow, but I’m ready to be done with this. Maybe we can start again after she turns 2 – that’s only 2 months away.

But now I feel like I’ve lost her. We’re not communicating well. I feel like we’re on opposing teams. I feel like she doesn’t trustme, and I know that I don’t trust her. It’s almost like the honeymoon has ended and now we’re learning to really love and trust each other. But I miss her so much. I miss the sweetness of everything she did and everything we shared. Now it seems like most of our time together is spent in some kind of struggle, no matter how I try to make things light by tickling her and singing and being silly – there’s just a heaviness in our midst. And every moment I’m sure that she’s about to pee somewhere.

She pooped in her panties today and as she did it, I asked her if she was pooping. She said no and made herself walk and play normally (when she wore diapers, she would go stand in the corner, relatively still, until it had passed). But today she lied and tried to cover it up. Where has Innocence gone?

I’m trying to convince myself that we’ve made huge progress from yesterday. Every time she peed today (every 35-40 minutes – and it squirts and sprays – even through her panties!), she announced it to me. “Pee! Go potty! Sophia needs to go potty!” Of course it was too late because by the time I’d get her to the potty, she had no pee left in her. But at least she announced it loudly to me and knew she should go to the potty. I’d get her to the bathroom and then wonder what to do with her. Do I ask her to sit on the potty for 10-15 minutes while I read her books, knowing that there’s no pee left in her? I decided to just wipe the pee off her legs and then go with her to her bedroom to get a fresh pair of panties – and set the alarm to go off in another 35 minutes (and then go wipe up the pee on the carpet -- we love Folex).

I tried bringing the potty into the living room – in to the middle of her toys and activities – and she got very upset, wanting me to put it back in the bathroom. She even pushed it back in to the hallway. If she’d done that last week, I would have thought it was motivated by a sense of how things should be – the potty has been in the same place in our bathroom for over 6 months now, so she knows that it belongs there. But now I think that she hates the potty and wants it away from her fun space. I think it represents confusion, failure, and the opposite of safety to her. It’s only been two days and already I’ve turned the potty into such a dark thing. And this in spite of my being so intentional to make everything light and easy!

Somehow we’ve gotten into the terrible habit of hearing the pee-pee song play on my cell phone, going to the potty, getting her panties down (or off), sitting there and reading books for 10-15 minutes without peeing, and then putting the panties back on and going out to play only to have her pee moments after we settle into playing. Is she just stressed out by the potty? She seems to hold her pee until she can tell that I’m not watching her intently. When she wore diapers, I used to let her play by herself while I went to another room and cleaned or cooked, or something, and would leave her alone (but in earshot) for up to ten minutes. Since we took the diapers off, I don’t take my eyes off of her for more than 2 minutes, for fear that I’ll miss a queue that she needs to pee. But somehow she can tell, and it’s when I’m not focused on her that she pees. Maybe it's me. I must be stressing her out.

I’m so afraid of that! I do not want her to associate peeing with stress. I used to wet my pants up through second grade and I want to protect her from that shame. So I tickle her while she’s on the potty and we giggle and laugh. And I read her books in really funny voices and I make faces in her books wink and blink by covering their eyes with my fingers – she loves that stuff. I sing to her in silly opera voices…

I’ve even decided to significantly lower my expectations and training goals. My goal for today was for her to announce to me loudly every time she peed. Goal achieved! The goal for tomorrow will be for her to announce that the pee is coming… we’ll see how that goes. One in five times she’ll say “Momma hold you! Owies! Owies!” when she’s about to pee. So now, when she says “owies” I rush her to the potty, only to find that she wants me to kiss her finger. Oh well… we’ll work on that tomorrow. Maybe, by Friday, we can get her to alert me in time to get her to the potty. And then, by Sunday, get her to let me take her panties off in time to get her sitting on the potty before the pee is out and down her legs? That might be too fast… we’ll see. Maybe my goal should have something to do with breaking the habit of peeing right after we’ve spent so much time on the potty…?

Recommendation 1: Let your kid be naked. Before we started all of this, we’d read of methods encouraging bare bottoms… and we were not okay with that. We finally decided that we would let Sophia wear a shirt and panties around the house, but if we left the house with her, she’d wear stretchy pants with an elastic waistband, to make them easy to remove in a hurry. But now I’m thinking that she can be naked at home and we just shouldn’t ever leave the house with her -- unless she’s in a swimsuit and she can just walk around outside and pee through it and then I can wash her legs when we get home (I’m only half-kidding about this one). Sometimes getting her panties off is a battle; sometimes getting her to put them back on is a battle. And we’re washing lots of panties in the pay-per-load machines in the basement each night… And sometimes she hides them while I’m washing up her potty. I’m pretty sure she’d rather be naked. I let her be naked for a few hours today and I loved it. I even let her go out on the balcony naked and help me water the plants. She peed on herself, announced it, and I asked her if I could wash off her legs and her shoes (rubber crocs) with the water from my watering can. She was okay with that, so I did, and we were back in business. No struggle over putting panties back on, washing the potty, scrubbing the floor, or anything. Just sunshine.

Recommendation 2: Prepare a week’s worth of food before beginning diaper training. I tried to steam some broccoli today, but in my efforts to keep things light and easy, got lost reading some books to Sophia on the couch and scorched the soggy broccoli and the pan. Cooking without a microwave while potty training is not easy.

I think I need to eat more dark chocolate. I find myself craving it. And I remember a lactation consultant telling me that to avoid post-partum depression, I should eat lots of dark chocolate. This whole experience reminds me so much of how strung-out I was for the first few months of Sophia’s life – trying to shower her with love and attention and peace, while feeling so overwrought in every other aspect of my life. Is this just how it is to be a mom?

When I came home from tutoring (an ESL student) tonight and Sophia was asleep in her bed, safe in her diaper, I felt this sense of peace wash over me. All is right with the world. Finally, we can all relax.

What a hard day. I’m so sad and disappointed. She pees on herself and doesn’t react at all. Just keeps playing without saying a word. And by the end of the day, she would say “no! no! no!” when I asked her to sit on the potty or take off her panties. It was a struggle sometimes, too, to get her to put her panties back on. I can’t believe how hard this is! I feel like I did in the first months after she was born, emotionally and physically exhausted. My throat is hoarse from singing songs and cheering. And I feel like we haven’t taken any steps forward – only backward.

At first, she wanted to wear every pair of panties we’d bought and it felt like she was peeing as quickly as she could so that she’d get to go through each pair as fast as possible. I set the alarm on my cell phone to play a fun song every 20 minutes. I gave her lots of water, soy milk, juice, whatever she wanted to drink. The alarm would sound and we’d do a fun/silly dance to the bathroom, giggling as we went to the potty. She’d sit there and I’d read her books for about ten minutes. Then she’d say “all done” and we’d pull up her panties (she gets the front and I get the back) and go out to the living room, where she’d start to play and then promptly pee on herself without saying a word. The next time the alarm would sound, I’d ask her if she needed to pee. “No.” So we’d skip it. The next time, I’d tell her it was time to try and she’d dance with me to the bathroom, but then say no about taking her panties off and would lock her knees and refuse to sit on the potty. But she was peeing every 35-40 minutes, mostly on the floor.

She peed in the potty 3 or 4 times and I was so proud – and so was she! She’d whisper “pee pee” as soon as it started and then stand up and empty her potty into the toilet. All day long I was wondering if she was just too young for this and if I’d become one of those pushy parents who makes their kids achieve milestones way too early… and stresses out their kids. I don’t want to be that at all! I honestly thought I was following her lead! But maybe we should just quit now and try again in a few months…? The thing is, she seems like she’s developmentally there. She’s smart and she knows all about the process and her body parts… it’s just not connecting somehow. But it’s only the first day…

We hope this will be very short, but in case it's not, we hope you find it helpful -- or at least -- enjoyable. We have no idea what we're doing.

2010 4 July: DAY 0, Preparation (or, Independence Day?). (Jen)
For some time now (like 6 months), I've been thinking that Sophia was ready for potty-training. She watches me go potty and narrates the whole process, from pulling down the panties, to drying hands on the towel. When we do laundry, she asks where Sophia’s panties are, and she tries to put mine on her. And for the last 3 or 4 months, every once in a while when we take her diaper off to change her into a fresh one, she’ll say “Sophia go potty?” and we’ll tell her to “run, run!” She’ll sit on her potty and pee and exclaim “Sophia go pee-pee in the potty!” And then we all do a happy dance for her. She even takes her baby dolls to the potty, sits them inside of it, tells me they are doing pee-pees, and then cheers for them when she takes them out of the potty.

At Sophia's one-year-old check up, her nurse practitioner told me that it would be a good time to buy a potty for Sophia so that she could get used to it being around and feel comfortable sitting on it. We followed her advice, and several times we even brought her to the potty when we thought she was beginning to poop and she successfully pooped in the potty! She’s only 22 months old (in a few days), but I thought that we might as well follow Sophia’s lead and let her start wearing panties early. She seemed so ready for it! In fact, for the last couple weeks I’ve been telling Sophia that when she starts peeing in the potty instead of her diaper, she gets to wear panties, and then I ask her if she thinks she can always pee in the potty and she’s enthusiastic about her “okay!” Ben suggested that we make sure that we were ready before we dove in, and I read a bunch of articles online, asked friends and relatives for advice, and felt sure that we were ready.

So, on Friday night, we told her that we were going to go buy panties tomorrow. She talked herself to sleep, saying “panties! Yay! Sophia gets panties tomorrow! Yay, panties!” On Saturday, we went to a consignment shop and found 3 unused pairs of panties on sale for $2 each. The salesperson put them in a special bag just for Sophia to carry and Sophia was bursting with smiles and exclamations of “Panties! Sophia gets to wear panties!” as we walked back to the car. As we drove to the mall to get more panties, Sophia was singing all of her favorite songs, with the word “panties” inserted in place of other words. We ended up finding bags of panties at Zeller’s (kind of like a Canadian version of Target) for cheaper, like 9 pairs for $6. Sophia was much more interested in the “moving alligator” (escalator) than in the racks of panties, most of which were too big for her. So I dug through the messy racks and found 2 bags of Strawberry Shortcake panties in a size 2, a bag of Fruit of the Looms in a size XXS (2-4), and another bag in a size 4. She told everyone she saw in the store that she was going to ride the alligator. So we rode it. And then she started telling everyone that she was going to wear panties.

On the drive home, she was putting the panties on her head, her arms, her shoes… and telling me that she was wearing them. She was so excited. When we arrived at home, she showed them all to a very excited Papa, who explained to her that she couldn’t wear them until Monday because we needed to wash them all and let them dry. She pondered for about a minute and then took a pair to the bathroom, climbed up her steps to the sink, asked Ben to turn on the water, and started washing her panties in the sink. She told him she needed soap, washed them some more, and then told him that they were clean, so she could wear them. We were so happy for her and we were beaming with pride over how smart she is! Ben explained that they needed to dry first, so she rubbed them on the hand towel in the bathroom for a while and then declared that they were dry. Ben showed her how to wring the water out of them in the sink, and then hang them up on the back of her chair to dry. That seemed to satisfy her. And she switched to telling us that on Monday she would wear panties all day long.

On Sunday night, after putting her to sleep, Ben and I sat on the couch together with a laptop, researching and making a list of what we thought we’d do… lots of things (I may update this entry later with that list, just for laughs). We thought we were so ready. I couldn’t sleep the whole night because I was so excited.

She’ll be 3 months and one week old tomorrow. As I look back at the photos of Sophia’s birth, and see our timid postures, I wonder why they ever trusted us with this innocent and fragile little girl. We look … happy… I guess. And tired and totally uncomfortable.

Near the end of our 38.5 hours of labor, after two applications of hormones to my cervix, after a 10-minute long contraction (the pain from which made my body shiver and my teeth chatter), after water breaking at home in bed and then all over the bathroom floor, after an epidural and an IV put in twice, after throwing up at least four times, after having all kinds of tubes and monitors and wires put up into me by various different doctors (one fetal heart rate monitor actually gets screwed shallowly into the baby’s head, and if it’s done poorly the first time, a different OB will come in and take the first one out and screw in a second one), after losing track of her heart rate, and finally, after learning how it felt to push successfully (much like pooping), Sophia’s head was out. I had been hearing the cries of other newborns for almost 24 hours in the delivery wing of BC Women’s Hospital. Each new set of cries signaled miracle and life and hope. I had been longing to hear the sound that meant that she was out, and that her lungs were okay. I think I didn’t really believe that I had a person inside of me, and I wanted that proof. Between contractions I had asked Thea, our midwife, if Sophia would be able to make any sound when just her head was out. Nope – she can’t make sounds until the fluid in her lungs is squeezed out, as happens in the process of a vaginal delivery.

They’d set up a mirror on a stand, with a bright light, so that I could watch our progress. I’d been looking at the wet, wrinkled, white top of Sophia’s head for what felt like hours. I had even reached down and touched it. But it felt so foreign, so unlike a soft baby – more like an internal organ. And for a long time, it didn’t seem like it was even moving. It would come out a bit and then get sucked back in. But Thea, the nurse, and Ben were all assuring me that I was doing a wonderful job of pushing. I kept pushing and catching my breath and looking in that mirror. Eventually, I ran out of tolerance for the pain. I took that as encouragement. After I saw blood in the mirror, I stopped looking. I just focused everything on pushing.

To be continued… Ben just set the table with black bean soup for lunch (we’ve been saving by having soup everyday except Sundays).