Tales from the Potty Whisperer

I had the pleasure of spending my Labor Day weekend trying to potty train my daughter Ella. I realized she was only 22 months old, so I was leery about even trying since she was so young, but she had been very enthusiastic about the whole thing and I didn't want to discourage her.

Last month we almost went crazy trying to keep diapers on the poor thing. The minute she would see a potty (this could even be just a picture of one) she would pull off her diaper and go and sit down and then of course demand a clean diaper even though the old one hadn't been used. She would also do this the minute her diaper got dirty, which was pretty nasty when it was a #2 concoction. Twice, she successfully went in the potty. After much deliberation and several wasted diapers we decided to give in and start potty training.

It didn't take long for me to remember why I hated potty training so much. You are basically imprisoned to your house and sentenced to asking your toddler if they are dry every 5 minutes. I couldn't even escape it in sleep. My dreams were laced with "are you dry"s and "do you have to go potty?"

Ells was willing for the most part to sit on the potty, but actually doing anything on the potty was another story. We gave her tons to drink to encourage her to go, but the little stinker just kept holding it in. I had a chart to record when she drank, had accidents, and went potty etc. so I knew about when an accident would occur. Around that time I'd encourage her to go potty.

We'd sit and sit and sit, but nothing. Games, stories, singing, coloring. . . still nothing. She just kept holding it in. I finally let her get up when my legs lost all feeling in them and then after pulling up her pants she'd take a few steps and just explode. Augh!

This happened several times with the holding time just getting longer. Finally I decided I'd just keep her entertained on the potty until she went. She however was going for some Olympic record because she was not going to go. I finally had to leave for my show and I got a call from Ben a few minutes later that she had finally gone.

Ben did a big hooray for her and gave her tons of treats, but she still seemed upset. I decided I'd try again the next day and see how it went before I decided to bag it.

Again it was a game of holding it in, until she'd stand up, or even better the time when she was jumping on our couch and had a Niagra Falls moment.

After cleaning the couch I realized she just really wasn't ready for it after all. She was having some major concerns about actually going on the potty and I didn't want to make things worse. I decided I would revisit this nightmare again in a couple months.

In the meantime I've been fighting with the feelings of failure. Supermom could potty train in one day, why couldn't I? This of course just opened the flood gates for overall inadequacy. I was discussing this with a friend and I think I'm going to write a book: Tales from the Potty Whisperer and other fantastical stories. I envision a funny book making fun of all those extreme new age parenting books that claim to know all the secrets about parenting. For example I remember reading a parenting book that suggested if your child didn't pick up their toys, you didn't punish them or give them any consequences, but picked the toys up yourself and just told your child you were disappointed in them. Now any kid with the devious gene like my son is going to learn to live with the disappointment in exchange for a full service maid. Oh I've read dozens of funny claims that would just be funny to discuss in a book. (I've also read a lot of good ideas in parenting books too, so I'm not making fun of parenting books, just extremists)

O.k. so I'm not really going to write a book or anything, but it did make me think that maybe I'm just too hard on myself and my kids. Society sets these unreal expectations that anyone short of Supermom is going to fail. Unfortunately this is even more so in Mormon culture. We love our kids, we want them to have the best, and we want to be the best mom ever. But does that mean you have to do everything?

Is it really imperative that we all get up at the crack of dawn to make homemade bread, or make our own organic baby food, or hand sew all our kid's costumes, or have them reading before they are three, or get them into the most prestigious pre-school? No. Sure these are all great things, and I would kill to have any of these talents, but does it make you less of a Mom if you don't do those things. I've concluded that it really doesn't. What children are going to remember is that we loved them and made time for them.

Now does that solve all feelings of inadequacy. Unfortunately not, but hopefully it will give me some comfort to remind myself that I'm a good mom because I love my kids. Even if they are in diapers until they graduate!