Go With the Flow

I recently celebrated my sixth wedding anniversary with my husband.  We went out to eat on the same night that tornadoes touched down and destroyed several neighborhoods in northern St. Louis County.  A tornado warning went off as we ate dinner and even more afterwards as we headed out to one of my favorite places to eat dessert.  My always cautious husband heard the sirens and rolled down the car window as we approached downtown.  He looked at me and said with all seriousness, “Well, I guess we should probably go home.”  I laughed in his face and then in the face of danger. “No way,” I said. “We are going to have a romantic night out if it kills us.”  As we sipped our chocolate drinks and ate our dessert, watched the wind and rain whip against the window right next to our table, we toasted, “To weathering the storm.”

It wasn’t an exaggeration.

Scenes of the devastation were all over the news when we got home from our date.  The next day we saw the destruction that the storm brought to some of the neighborhoods just north of where we had eaten dinner.  I felt a little guilty for my statement made in jest.  It’s just, we hadn’t been on a date in a really, really long time.  I didn’t want to be home by 7:30 on the night of our anniversary, not after the year we’ve had, especially since we already had a babysitter.  And those of you who know me know that yes, I would risk my life for chocolate.  It was that good.

We thought that the worst was over, but over the next couple of days the rain came down pretty hard and consequently flash flood warnings went up all over the metro area.  And while it didn’t affect us directly, I can say that to a certain extent, the flood gates were opened in our house. 

Or, in other words, something big happened.

Wait for it.

My son, my first born, my beautiful, now three year old boy, has officially gone tinkle in the big boy potty.  He peed, I cried.  Don’t think I’m perverted, but I also thought it was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, even when some of it landed on the floor.  As with sleeping in his big boy bed and getting rid of the binky, I had built this moment up in my mind to be something that would be nearly impossible to accomplish.  It caused me such anxiety and stress.  It didn’t help that all of my friends had two year olds who were almost or completely potty trained.  My son hadn’t even gone in the potty once.  Remember, he’s the one who screamed and cried every time I would try to even sit him on the potty.  And once again, I had put unnecessary pressure on myself, feeling the heat of competition and wishing that my son wasn’t such a scaredy-cat.  I felt so much pressure, even after hearing from several moms that “Your son will let you know when it’s time” and “Don’t even try to start until he’s ready.”  This seemed a little ridiculous to me, that a toddler would know what’s best for him.  It kind of goes against every motherly instinct I have, to let him decide for himself when he’s ready.  But I’ll be a son of a gun, that’s exactly what happened.  He just decided.  One night as he ran around naked, he paused and stood in a way that, if anyone has ever had a puppy, is recognized as “the pee stance.”  That’s when my husband, God love that man, asked my son if he’d like to use the potty and I almost fainted when he responded, “Yes!”  Cue the waterworks, for both of us.  Then, miracle of miracles, my husband showed my son how to tinkle standing up.  And not in the little potty that his Gaga had bought for him (i.e. the Cadillac of baby toilets) because that would be too easy.  No, my son actually tinkled in mama and dada’s toilet.  He is the porcelain king!  He skips the minors and goes straight into major league big boy potty training!  There was much rejoicing and singing and dancing in our house that night; lots of squeals and as I mentioned before, lots of tears.  You know I can’t experience this kind of relief without a hint of sadness.  My baby is officially a “big kid now.”  He has gone at least four times a day on the potty since then and is reaping a great harvest of stickers and new underwear.  We are well on our way to overcoming this mother load (no pun intended) of all milestones.  He’s not “trained” yet by any means and we have had our fair share of accidents.  But I see the finish line, and I am full of hope.  I told some friends of mine that I am tempted to put down newspaper like I would for a puppy so as to not turn our entire house into one huge toilet, but I’m just kidding.  I am so proud of him.  I am so proud of my husband, and okay, I’m a little proud of myself.  Let me promise all of you moms and dads out there that, listen, it’s not so bad.

Did you hear me?  I said, it’s not so bad.  That’s quite a different tone than I had in my last blog entry, to be sure.

My son says that a lot lately, “It’s not so bad.”  I guess he picked it up from me after he spilled juice on the floor and I said, “It’s okay buddy, it’s not so bad.”  Now he says it after every bowel movement, “It’s okay mama.  It’s not so bad.”  After every fit, “It’s okay to throw fits sometimes mama.  It’s not so bad.”  And after every time he falls, he shakes his head with tears in his eyes and convinces himself, “It’s not so bad.”  How reassuring and promising, that whatever it is he’s dealing with, he knows it’s…not so bad.

Lesson learned.  I take his lead.  I just have to relax and go with the flow.  Why does it take so long to learn lessons like this?  Time and again it’s been proven that if I am just patient and remain faithful, that most things will just work themselves out. 

As if the miracle of my stubborn son peeing in the big boy potty wasn’t enough, we were told last week that the neighbor is going to cooperate with the prospective owner of my mother’s house and we are set to close, or at least try for the second time to close, in just two short weeks.  I admit I am scared because of what happened the last time.  I pray every night that this thing works out and please God, don’t let anything else go wrong, as if He was the one who let it go wrong in the first place.  Silly, self-indulgent Carrie.  But this time, I see the finish line.  I am full of hope.  It’s just the way of life, I guess.  Storms only last for a short time. You can’t worry about when the next one will come, just get through this one.  There’s hope.  The rain will stop and the sun will come out.  The other day I saw a double rainbow and I thought, yes, there it is.  There’s my promise.  Now I can be grateful, which is what I should’ve been all along.  Because honestly, if I didn’t go through all of this, I couldn’t look you in the face and say with all sincerity, “Hey, it’s not so bad.”

I promise.