6 July: DAY 2, I love Diapers. (Jen)

I never I thought that I’d be the one wanting Sophia to go back to diapers (I’d expected it to be Sophia, if anyone). But I do. I miss them so much. Before we started potty training, Sophia was my little buddy. We played and enjoyed life so much together. I felt like we were a team – a winning team who could conquer the world (we’d already conquered nursing, eating solids, crawling, walking, sleeping through the night [she still does 12 hours uninterrupted every night!], painting with a brush, recognizing and drawing shapes, walking unaided in the shallow end of the pool with the water up to her ears, singing, and so many other challenges). I really thought that she was the smartest, most capable little girl that had ever graced the earth.

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.