I have this tremendous feeling of great accomplishment now that my son is talking. Everyday we explore new words and string together more phrases. You’d think that with this new development, I could relax a little now and take it easy on myself. “Now that your son has spoken you are free to go on two weeks paid vacation.” If only parenting were that easy. There is no vacation when it comes to your child’s development.
Yesterday at our play date a friend of mine announced, “Junior has gone to the big boy potty four times!” I was so excited for her. I asked her how she did it. Her son is a few months younger than mine. She casually explained that before bath time they would set him on the potty and he’d go. Simple as that. It’s pretty telling of the kind of year I’ve had when something like this sets me into panic mode. But it does. I remember that the duties of parenting stretch far beyond teaching your child to say “Let’s go other room.” There’s something called, dreadfully enough, “potty training.”
My son is two and a half. He’s also in pre-preschool so several of his peers have already started using the big boy potty. Standing around talking to my mommy friends, I felt alone yet again. Why was I the only one freaking out about potty training? They all seemed so calm about it. They all had great advice which I soaked in like a sponge. I looked at my son, who was the only kid in the group with a pacifier in his mouth. I said guiltily, “I’m going to have to work on that binky thing too.” We call his pacifier a binky. More casual advice came forth on how to get rid of the binky. Again, I seemed to be the only one making a big deal out of these rites of passage. I started confessing that there’s no way I’m ready to give up my son’s binky in public because he is too loud. That binky plugs him up and saves me some embarrassment. I guess it causes a different kind too, though. One of my friends joked, “So is your son not ready to let go of the binky or you?” “Oh, it’s me,” I admitted with only a hint of shame. Being a first time mom, the realization hits pretty hard that I’m responsible for every stage of my son’s development. But yesterday as I confessed in a panic to my friends, “I’ve taught my son his ABC’s, isn’t that enough?” I flash forward to my son at five years old, standing in the middle of a kindergarten classroom with a binky in his mouth saying his ABC’s in a diaper. “He’s a genius!” I still lie.
As a first time mom, I feel like I’m the ultimate survey taker. I have asked my friends about everything from maternity clothes, breast pumps and formula, to what brands of diapers they like, how to get Junior to sleep through the night, how to wean him off the bottle. Their advice is welcome even if it’s not solicited. I collect the data, analyze it, make a database and then draw my own conclusions about what to do next. It’s a great thing, having a circle of mommy friends. It’s also an experiment of sorts, as the D’fferent Strokes theme song says, “What might be right for you, may not be right for some.” It takes all kinds of methods and all kinds of mommies to “move the world, yes it does.”
This potty training thing has thrown me into a tizzy.
A woman I know told me she just cut off her kids’ diaper supply cold turkey. She admitted, “I’m the queen of potty training.” I bow to the queen. She just let her kids get wet so they would feel uncomfortable, forcing them to tell her when they had to go potty. This sounds like a dangerous experiment to me, one that might cost me my sanity. She’s the same person who admitted to actually taking pictures of her children’s first, uh, bathroom by-products, numbers one and two. I can just imagine the confusion that follows any viewing of their family album. “Isn't that cousin so-and-so?” “No honey, that’s your first boom-boom.”
I’ve heard friends say to not waste money on pull-ups. Others have said they don’t know what they would’ve done without them. I’ve heard some friends say to just put a kid seat on your potty and still others say to get them their very own potty. Some friends have said, “You’ll know when the time is right.” And others have said, “Your son’s not potty trained yet? You better get to work.” Diapers, pull-ups, undies…oh my. I walk into the bathroom and it’s not the great place of solitude it once was. It’s become my full on panic room.
So I tried it. This morning I stripped my son down for his bath (which my husband conveniently forgot to give him last night) started running the water and brought in his big boy potty. This is the Cadillac of potties, let me tell you. My mother in law bought it for him and every time he tinkles it will sing him a song. It has a huge smiley face on it and a little arm to hang toilet paper. You'd think my son would love this. It even has recorded applause for him. He’s sat on it a couple of times before. Granted he was fully clothed, but still, it felt like progress. I said to him, “Look buddy, here’s your big boy potty!” “Yes!” he said. I said, "Here buddy, sit down on your big boy potty and try to tinkle.” “NO!” he said. I tried everything I could think of to get him to sit on that potty. “Look buddy, it sings a song. Look here, you get big boy toilet paper. Look at that, wow!” My enthusiasm was only creating more tension. Now my son doesn’t want to sit on his potty and I’ve managed to make him hate the thing. While it felt like forever, only about three minutes passed of trying on my part. I set him in the bathtub. I walked out of the bathroom for a second to cry. I actually cried. This is going to be so hard, I thought. Why is it that the smallest defeats always overshadow our biggest victories? Collecting myself, I went back in and sat on the toilet, fully clothed, like my son does. “I love you baby,” I said. “We’ll try to sit on our big boy potty some other time, okay?” “Okay, mama,” said my sweet little boy.
I sat down to write today and an epiphany hit me so hard it almost knocked me over. Why did I start writing this stupid blog in the first place? Two reasons. The first and foremost was because I was tired of constantly apologizing for myself. Someone on t.v. (yes, on one of those nefarious talk shows) said that his teacher told him, “Own who you are and no one can use you against you.” I started writing this blog to tell you that, hey, this is me. I own me. I grew tired of feeling like I always had to apologize for myself, my inappropriate-at-times sense of humor, my weight, my inadequacies as a parent, and all of those built-in female insecurities. Here it is, all of it. Second, I wanted to work through this process of parenting with others, hoping that some of what I say will ring true in your life and then we can cry about it and ultimately laugh about it. That’s it. I forgot for a minute this morning that I’m me, not you. Things in my home are slightly different than in yours, and that’s the way I like it. Why should I be crying about potty training my son when I should be doing my thing, laughing about it? This big boy potty thing will happen all in good time. I remind myself, it will happen. I can relax now and enjoy the ride again. The pressure’s off, for now.
At least until it’s time to take that pacifier away.
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