Sunday, July 14, 2013

An updated introduction

I've updated my introduction to this blog. Click the link up under the blog title ^^^ or here in this post to read a little blog history and to get a feel for what these Lamentations are all about.

Friday, July 12, 2013

Just pee already!

It would probably be more enjoyable for all of us to have a sweet update on baby Jedi, how he is deliciously fat, smiley and fitting in with our family very well.

Buuuuuuut.....instead I'm going to tell you about how Gizmo makes me see red, and how the toddler stage sucks, and how I hate it so hard.

Gizmo has been potty training for a few weeks now. Really, he is pretty good at it. I haven't had to do hardly anything. That's the best kind of potty training. (Moms, my advice to you is: if you try potty training, and you are putting in more work than your toddler, then stop and try again in a few more weeks or months!)

We only very rarely have accidents. Of course, I am still doing diapers when we go out for over an hour. And, of course, the only accidents we do have include a horrible mess to clean up (like peeing on my couch, or pants full of crap).

Recently, we started putting Gizmo to bed in his underwear. It started as a mistake. But when he woke up dry and was able to get to the potty to pee, we figured we'd try it more often.

But this morning, Gizmo refused to pee on the potty. I let it slide for a bit, and went ahead and served him breakfast. After his food was gone, I asked him again to go potty. He refused. So I told him that he would be grounded from the tv until he peed in the potty. But rather than deciding it would be a good idea to pee in the potty afterall, he decided to throw a tantrum.

Now, I am not a patient mother. I am a big time yeller. And when a toddler flops all over me in an irrational meltdown, especially while I'm trying to nurse a baby, I get especially ragey.

After about 20 minutes, I had almost completely lost my cool. I was able to lay Jedi down (asleep, by some miracle) and I carried Gizmo to the bathroom, stripped his pants off, and perched him on the toilet seat. (His preferred method of eliminating is squatted with his feet on the seat.) And still, he refused to pee. He climbed down, and I put him back. I told him that he could not leave the bathroom until he peed.

We fought and fought and apparently I was losing, because the kid wasn't peeing in the potty. So I started yelling.

"WHY WON'T YOU JUST PEE ALREADY!?! IF YOU WANT TO GO PLAY! ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS PEE IN THE POTTY!!! WHY DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT!?!?"

And then, over an hour after waking up and holding it in, Gizmo lost control of his bladder. But he wasn't all the way on the toilet. And he still didn't want to be peeing. So he got pee everywhere. The floor, the toilet seat, his legs, his feet, his shirt, and his hands...grasping himself in a desperate attempt to defy the command to pee in the potty.

And then I lost it all over again, because there is no rational reason for that mess to have happened, and I was going to have to clean it all up. Toddlers are always irrational.