Blog Archives
Only Two Weeks
…into the semester, and already my head feels like this. I am really struggling this semester, with motivation and engagement. To be honest, if I didn’t “have” to finish this degree, I don’t know that I would even continue through this mid-point slump. There is just SO much to do in the next year, and so much of it is busy work. Part of the problem is my own, for choosing a program where most of my peers are in very different professional contexts, so there is little sustained camaraderie / connection. I’m clueless about a lot of things in life, but especially K-12 education, and that’s where most of my peers “live”. Hell, I can barely figure out the school thing for my own kid, let alone the thought of being actually involved with the process of teaching.
I’m taking an especially annoying touchy-feely class about education and culture. It is heavily discussion based and quite frankly, boring as hell–so far, anyway. I don’t disparage the notion of cultural sensitivity/competence in the education domain, but the execution of the class is sorely lacking, and hello, where’s the relevance? I hate discussing stuff for the sole reason of minimum number of postings to get a minimum number of ‘points’. If the conversation isn’t executed as part of the learning process, why bother?
OK, this was a downer post, and maybe I’m just tired and overwhelmed, so we’ll check back in on this a few weeks and I’ll regale you with tales of exciting exploration of education and culture. If only I could delegate my homework to someone else.
Miscellaneous Week in Review
Well, here it is, Friday night and I finally have a few moments to spill my brain onto paper, errr, pixels. Our usual four-person-team at work was down by two all week (one unfortunately off to greener professional fields, another off on vacation) so it has been crazier than usual. Two good work points though, even in these challenging economic times, we have been given the green light to go ahead and fill person #4′s newly vacated spot, and I also received a small promotion. I guess technically “small” “medium” or “large” are pretty arbitrary quantifiers, but in this case, the distinction is that the promotion is mostly nominal in the job title, and not so much about the $$$. I continue to be grateful to have a job, to have great benefits, great coworkers, etc and choose to keep my attitudinal ass firmly planted on the bright side of things.
The house. Oh lord, the house. Technically we were supposed to close on June 19th but have encountered a series of delays (also, technically I was supposed to be on vacation next week MOVING). It has been the most incredibly stressful, drawn out, soul-sucking, frustrating, overwhelming, bleak three weeks imaginable (also to which I attribute George the ulcer.) We had hoped to get more information by close of business today, and so not sit around all weekend again twiddling our thumbs, suffering, but alas, no dice. Our entire life pretty much is ON HOLD. And it is making me capital-K-KRZY.
Did I mention the weather has been running a steady 105-110°? And that our AC unit in the rental home SUCKS? Did you know that the backs of your earlobes can sweat?
Anyway, enough pity party.
Last weekend, we went up north to do an emergency resuscitation on Gmom’s computer. The drive is about two hours, and I realized before leaving, the longest car trip we had undertaken since the End of the Great Potty Training Wars. IE, the first road trip wearing big girl undies.
At first, I thought I was being so smart, by insisting she potty before leaving, and also not providing her sippy cup to hold on to in the back seat as usual. I figured hey–2 hours, what’s the big deal? Well, an hour into the trip, George the ulcer (or was it just the voices in my head?) began insistently demanding an iced latte. So we detoured to a convenient freeway-side drive thru. While ordering, K asked for chocolate milk and by reflex, I nonchalantly ordered it, and then stuck a straw in there and gave it to her. Whereupon she immediately downed all 8 ounces. Yeah, I know, rookie error. See, FF and I were so preoccupied chewing over the house situation, and trying not to LOSE OUR MINDS over the constant stream of chatter/complaints from the back seat, that we didn’t even think of the trip-bladder issues.
Well, I’m sure you know where this is headed. She made it about another half hour and then the complaints started taking on a new tone and urgency. I was so hoping that she could just hold it til we got into town, but over the next 10 minutes, she really started freaking out. And also, FF had to take that car seat apart once before because of an early potty-training accident, and it practically took a PhD, divine intervention, and an engineering manual to put the damn thing back together.
So I decided I would have to pull off at the next exit and introduce her to the fine art of roadside peeing. Because yes, in another typical rookie maneuver, I decided not to bring the portable potty chair–again thinking “hey, it’s only 2 hours!” IDIOT. It took about 5 minutes to get to the next exit, and by that time, she had escalated to a constant whine/fuss, and then she started spontaneously clapping. FF and I were like, WTF?! It kinda freaked us out at first, hahaha. For some reason, it seemed to help her cope, so she continued to fuss, and clap, whilst FF started querying me on how exactly I was planning to orchestrate roadside peeing with a 3 year old girl. I think I said something like, “geez, pull down her pants and show her how to squat, how complicated can it be???”
So we got pulled off to the side of the road and while unbuckling her, I explained to K that she was going to have to just pee outside this time, since we couldn’t make it to a potty in time. She was very puzzled but going along with it, until I pulled down her pants and showed her how to squat down, and I said, “ok now lets pull your shorts out of the way and then you can just tinkle right here on the grass”. And she looks at me and says “the grass LIKES THAT?”
And the poor kid got points for technique, but not so much for aim–she got her pants and shoes wet. So it then became a clean up and re-dress maneuver.
But….
the carseat triumphed and remained dry.
Aaaaaaahhhhhhh
Aren’t kids supposed to SLEEP MORE when they are sick (you know, not like, hospital-sick, but just I-have-a-cold-and-want-to-make-my-parents-crazy-sick)? Geez, we stupidly figured that she could just as easily be sick with her cold at grandmother’s house as ours so we went up the hill for the weekend. K didn’t even NAP during the 2.5 hour drive, either coming or going! By the end of the trip home, she was whining/complaining incoherently about nothing, and I was babbling incoherently about nothing right back to her.
I’d try to construct a weekend summary post with some kind of intelligence behind it but quite frankly, my nerves are shot, my eardrums are bleeding (figuratively–possibly literally if tomorrow is anything like today) and no one else needs to suffer through all the whining, crying, drama, and sheer test of parental willpower of the last 2 days.
As FF says, next time she is sick and whiney, we will crate her up with a jug of water and some towels and overnight Fedex her TO GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE.
Toilet Tantrum, Prozak Anyone?
I keep getting little glimpses of tantalizing hope that there may be light at the end of the potty-training tunnel. I really thought we were making progress. We have been diaper free for almost two weeks, using pull-ups mostly, but with a good handful of big-girl undie sessions too. She had a few spontaneous, successful potty events, and while remaining uninterested in performance motivators, I had hoped we were going the right direction. And then, there was this morning.
K was slated to go hang out at K2′s house, to spend time being un-bored with the more interesting toys her cousin possesses. So I figured, hey this is great, another chance to practice wearing big girl undies out of the house! Naturally, the fact that someone else would have to deal with any accident cleanup (my dear, dear brother) never entered into my mental equation. Of course, I was going to do the courtesy of making sure K did her morning business before leaving, so when we got up, I gave her a few minutes to wake up and hopefully un-grumpify, and then gently herded her into the bathroom to weewee before she went in her pullup anyway. [side note: no matter how hard you resist, when you become a parent, you will start using words like weewee, potty, ouchies, etc. CANNOT.BE.AVOIDED.]
She instantly turned into a rabid snarling wildebeest. Or something like that. She did actually climb up onto the potty, whereupon she snarled and fussed and did absolutely nothing. Wearing my most patient, saintly expression, I thanked her for trying and we washed, and proceeded to get dressed. She snarled over that, and over breakfast (which she refused to eat anyway as per the norm). While patiently overlooking her wildebeest antics, and giving her some space to calm down [read: ignoring her altogether while checking my email] she came running in all freaked out about (and no, this is not a typo) “peeping in her pants!”. She was squawking about not being able to find her other underwear, which made no sense because she has about 18 pair in the drawer/laundry basket.
I reassured; I tried to soothe; I calmly asked her to go in the bathroom (a mere 6 feet away) and pull off her wet pants while I went and retrieved clean clothes. She screeched and went all wildebeest again, saying ”I CAN’T DO IT!”. So I said, alrighty then, just go in the bathroom and stand there and wait for me. So she snarls, screeches, AND runs into the bathroom and flops herself on the wide edge of the tub (facedown) and starts kicking her feet. Offering help elicited more screaming. I sat and stared and otherwise ignored.
So then she realized her wildebeest ways aren’t doing her any good and she stands up and does a token tug on her pants, and starts screaming about not being able to pull them down. Further ignoring the wildebeest produces the desired effect and she tries again, this time successfully removing the offending garments to her ankes. More screeching and foot flapping ensues, and finally they are thankfully off. I praised; and was just about to go looking for clothes, when she hops up on the potty and says “Mom, now I’m peeping again!”. So while praising her, she lifts one leg up to rest her foot on the edge, to get a better view and visually verify her urinary prowess. And then the screeching begins about the “peeps going all over!”.
Could this get worse? Yes it could. I suggested to her that putting her silly leg down would fix the splashing problem, and she makes a loud “humph” sound, spins around on the potty sideways (still peeing) so her back is to me, and proceeds to start kicking the toilet with her heels and screaming some more for good measure. Prompting her to clean up with the flushable wipes sponsored another round of frantic wildebeest behavior, as did flushing and handwashing.
So, to make a long story short, she did finally get redressed, somewhat calmed down, and transported over to K2′s house. No breakfast but hey, who’s counting?
I thought seriously about the situation all the way to work, and decided on a new strategic battle plan. She definitely can use the toilet when necessary, but since she chooses to avail herself of the convenience of diapers/pullups, I’m going to remove the choice. Yep, it’s going to have to be cold turkey (except at night or when we will be out of the house for long periods of time) because I know she doesn’t like the feeling of an accident, so hopefully that in and of itself will prove to be the best motivator of all. Also, I saw a Dora sticker chart at Target and I’m going to get it and institute a simple policy: 1 sticker for weewee, 2 for poo, and a full chart means a trip to CHUCK E CHEESE’S! She’s been twice, and is obsessed. I have no shame in using that to my advantage.
After all, it is war.
The potty bribery list
Did I say bribery? I meant “performance rewards”.
including but not limited to:
- M&Ms (what kid wouldn’t be motivated by M&Ms? mine, obviously)
- chocolate chip cookies
- Dora-the-explorer popsicles
- chocolate milk
- Winnie-the-pooh / Dora computer games (a new recent obsession but yet her willpower to ignore is still stronger)
- Temporary Blues Clues and Tinkerbell tattoos
- Adorable, pristine, colorful big-girl underwear in both Dora and Disney princess models
- Special new books to read on the potty
This is me
