wee the people
yesterday carys and i had a sitoff at the wee wee corral.
i have gotten rather intolerant of her laissez faire approach to toilet training. it’s not so much a spirit is willing but the flesh is weak situation, it’s more like she doesn’t want to be toilet trained and i want her to be.
ding ding (sound of shooter glass against grey goose bottle) let BATTLE OF THE WILLS begin.
we’ve had these before, young carys and i. remember last february when she refused for five hours to return a shoe to the cupboard? same child. same attitude. same mother.
so yesterday when she woke up from her nap, for the fifth straight day, she had a dry nappy. enough. i informed her, "carys, you can wear knickers". she was thrilled.
but, i warned, in my best fairy visiting little rabbit foo foo voice, "no weeing in your knickers. only wee in the toilet."
her colleagues chimed in the benefits of weeing in the potty, and i sat carys on the toilet, thinking that a post nap wee would shortly be coming. nothing.
fair enough. so out to the playground they went. NOTHING for four hours. NO WEE WEE. at 5pm my fingers started itching and i wondered if i should be looking up on google the symptoms of kidney failure. did the endocrinologist warn this would happen and had i tuned him out? we were putting her on the toilet every 15 minutes, and NOTHING was happening. AND I HAD EVEN GIVEN HER JUICE TO MAKE SURE SOMETHING WOULD HAPPEN. you try giving one child juice while hiding it from three others, and then having that one child not tell the others. tough stuff.
we trooped up from the playground at 6pm. usually, bath time is right after the playground, but i took carys along with the dora the explorer toilet ring into my bathroom and sat her on it. i prayed with her and sat down, and sort of zoned out. i didn’t bring books and games, which was a calculated mood. the child obviously had to wee, and i wasn’t going to show her how much fun we could have over a prolonged period on the loo.
someone once said, "what is the point of taking an earlier flight if it’s a longer route and the later flight will get you in at the same time as the longer one." oooh, an analogy.
why am i toilet training carys? because i think she is ready. she was weeing on the toilet before the summer, and then we all stopped making it an effort, realising that a nappy reliant summer made for an easier one.
and because this is a battle. she is NOT scared of the toilet, she loves flushing it, she loves watching her siblings wee while perched on the toilet. she begs to wear knickers. this is an I DON"T WANT TO, vs MUMMY WANTS IT. and right or wrong, mummy is going to win. she just needs to get started and then old iron bladder will be a dream, i suspect.
then again, given that we have yet to master the art of scat and the toilet, i suspect i am in for another few rude battles.
in case you are wondering how today went, dry nappy at the end of nap, sat on toilet every 15 minutes very happily until 6.02pm, when she we’ed, wiped and flushed and very happily informed lita of the fact. i told her i was very proud and let her select the knickers she will proudly wear tomorrow.
