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Backslide and near despair

  • Writer: Joe
    Joe
  • 2 days ago
  • 4 min read

I've written twice this year already about our daughter. One of these detailed how she's becoming a handful, thinking she's a princess and hearing about it everywhere she goes. The other was an immensely hopeful post about how flawless her potty training went back in February. Six months later I'm feeling utterly defeated. How the turn tables.


The biggest piece of this is the bathroom stuff. Starting, I think, back in March, she started having difficulties, wetting her pants and apparently not much caring that she did. Sometimes she'll try to pretend it didn't happen and/or hope we don't notice. This, of course, seemed normal and natural at first, a regression is common after a while when it's no longer fun. So we pushed through, encouraging her to go in the toilet and keeping the on-the-ground starter toilets around the house. But it hasn't really gotten better.


Frequently it gets a lot worse. There have been days, memorably once when my mom was visiting from Arizona and another when we stayed with family friends at a farm-country barn-cabin, that we went through five or more pairs of pants. I'll more or less try to take her to the bathroom every hour, because if I forget than we're changing clothes again. At one point there was legitimate concern that she had some sort of physical problem, like a UTI, and she was taken to urgent care. It was an educational day. Her body is so tiny, she's still an absolute peanut if you haven't seen her, that whenever she's even slightly constipated there's not much room in her bladder. When the bladder is squished, all the time to an extent, she's going to leak a little, all the time. Or, you know, more than a little. This explains much of her issues.


The solution is at least partially dietary. In the immediacy following the doctor visit we got some sort of mix-in powder to clear her out, but ever since I try to constantly ply her with high fiber foods. We have a giant bag of dried apricots that are part of the snack rotation now. I try to make smoothies packed with fruit, greens and chia and flax seed once or twice a week. I do think it helps and certainly notice when she hasn't gotten enough. Why are kids so obsessed with bread and cheese?


But, still, getting to the toilet is a constant battle, most of the time simply because she's a stubborn, utterly defiant almost three-year-old. Far too often she'll scream bloody murder as I carry her to the bathroom and place her on the toilet, especially when we're trying to leave the house. Or she'll say she needs to go, which, great!, but she initially runs away from the bathroom and doesn't make it there on time, then making a giant puddle on the stool she uses to climb up there. So close and yet so far.


I don't remember if I've written this before though I know I've discussed it with friends: the terrible twos actually start when they're close to three, maybe like two and three quarters. Or at least that's what it was with our boys. But they can't hold a candle to our daughter in this respect. She is our most willful child, which is in fact saying a lot, and has been in this stage the most defiant as well. It started early and has not as yet shown any signs of slowing down. As my wife described it, she's a spitfire.


We fight about everything, nearly all the time. Yes, obviously, this includes the bathroom. That stuff has been going on nearly every day for months now. But it's so much more than that. She does what she wants, not what she's asked to do. She ignores me as she pleases, not responding at all if not liking what she hears. I'm getting more and more outright refusals, NO!, when I'm trying to get her to do something. It can be maddening as most of the fights are over regular activities we do every day, coming inside after a car ride, sitting at the table for dinner, getting dressed, staying in her room after we do bedtime. It feels like you're losing your mind going through this over and over again. All that plus she's a sneaky little instigator with her brothers and a roving destructor with items in our house.


Cracking up after finding this, so true
Cracking up after finding this, so true

Perhaps the biggest reason I feel pressure on getting her to the bathroom successfully, in particular, but all of this, is that she's going to start preschool for the first time in less than a month. Or that's the plan anyway. A prerequisite of this school is that the kids are potty trained, and it's just not going to work if it keeps up as is. Hopefully she starts taking it seriously quickly.


The overall effect on me through this has been draining, defeating. On several occasions I've wanted to put her back in diapers in moments of weakness and near despair. There are days when I just give up on trying to be diligent after throwing outfit after outfit into the laundry room sink. How do you motivate such a domineering little girl? She doesn't seem to care. Well, I'm still working on it.

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