A Certain Ratio

Potty training officially began at 9:37 on the morning of Friday, November 25. By 8:00 p.m. on the evening of Sunday, November 27, the ratio of accidents to successes was as follows:

Accidents: 19.0

Successful uses of potty: 0.75 

The .75 is comprised of .50 a pee that began on the floor and ended in the potty after I rushed the portable Bjorn potty under the kid and shouted "sit down! sit down! you're doing it! you're doing it!" and .25 some sort of tiny pebble of poop that only made into the potty because the kid was on his hands and feet with his butt pointed squarely at the potty. I gave him partial credit for initiating the move that placed him adjacent to the potty and for aiming his tush in the right direction. The rest of the credit belongs to gravity.

We had high hopes for our designated potty training weekend. Changing diapers had become a never-ending and continually-increasing struggle. The kid hated being up on the changing table and did nothing but kick me and shout "don't hold my legs! don't touch me!" from the minute the process began to the minute it ended. And in between were the lowering and the lifting of the buttocks which makes it impossible to attach a diaper to a kid and the flipping over of the entire body which is just annoying. And messy if you haven't gotten rid of the old diaper yet.

The potty talk had begun in earnest over the summer when the kid started day care and noticed all the big kids using the bathroom. As the months progressed and the seasons changed it became clear the that the time for ditching diapers was upon us. There were arguments that at 2-1/2, it was still too early as these days, many boys don't train until 3. And there were arguments that we had already waited too long. But the decision was made based on the fact that I could no longer tolerate getting clocked in the face by a wayward foot and was tired of figuring out how to refasten a cattywampus diaper onto a writhing child.

And so, the excited countdown to "no more diaper day!" began. We made a chart on a poster board. We bought stickers. We talked about the day we would wear big boy underwear (which we'd actually purchased months ago) and the kid was ready. Or at least he said he was ready.

And I thought he was; on the Wednesday before the Friday that had been selected as "no more diaper day," he actually asked to sit on the little potty in the corner of the bathroom. And in the moment before the pee pee came, he stood up, faced the potty, aimed and fired and shot the whole amount right into the potty. And if that weren't enough, without any prompting by Mommy, he picked up the removable pot section, took it over to the toilet (perhaps the word "took" implies that there is actually room to walk in our bathroom. this is not the case. "turned" to the toilet might be a more appropriate description), dumped the pee right in and flushed. I was delighted! Oh my goodness! My son is a peeing prodigy! This is going to be a snap! The kid is going to be like those other children I hear about--the ones whose mothers say "Oh, I just put litte Timmy in his big boy pants and he knew just what to do. We didn't have any accidents. He didn't even need pull ups at night!"

Bully for you, you lucky parents of little Timmy. Bully for you.

As you can tell from the certain ratio of our initial potty training weekend, we are not the parents of little Timmy. We are not following the advice of the books and the parents who exclaim "OMG--do it in 2 days! Don't do that over-several-weeks thing. Nightmare!" Perhaps the nightmare will be our reality. At this point, that looks to be the road down which we are headed. With our lack of any success by Saturday night--the end of that magical two-day period in which every other kid we've ever heard of seems to have *gotten it*--we came upon several methods to try on Sunday: running water, rewards for sitting on the potty for 15 minutes (I was going to go with a sticker, but Stu stunningly upped the ante to 2 new Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars for each sitting. Yeah. You heard me. Not 1 car, but 2.), running around "nakey," and moving the portable potty downstairs after purchasing a potty seat (pictured above) for the big toilet upstairs.

The kid loves his potty seat. He has no qualms about sitting on that thing indefinitely. He sits. He plays with cars. He listens to the running water. He talks about how he's going wee wee and woo woo, which he learned to say from the Elmo Potty Time dvd I rushed out to buy after remembering that some parent had said her child instantly understood potty training after one viewing. We've now had several viewings and the kid was delighted to learn how many ways there are to refer to pee and poop and thoroughly enjoys Grover and Elmo's song about accidents. He's even gone so far as to tell us that he doesn't want any more accidents and that he doesn't like them. But still, we sit on the potty and nothing happens. And when we take him off the potty, everything happens. 

When Monday rolled around, it was clear the kid was not heading off to day care in big boy underwear.  But the kid was also not going to wear diapers and get back up on that changing table. So we've been progressing through the week in pull ups, which seems to please the kid to no end. So he's not a potty training prodigy.  So he needs a lot more practice and it may take weeks. He does some things amazingly well. Other things not as well. And for any kid, that's a certain ratio that's certainly just fine.

Sick Day

Shel Silverstein's "Sick." One of my fave poems of all time.

11:28pm
"We have puke," Stu announces, leaning in towards my head so I can hear him through the muffle of the earplugs (Stu and I both sleep with earplugs. Stu's affair with the plugs began several years ago when he was experiencing some sleep issues and I followed suit a couple of years later during my pregnancy when I inexplicably became incredibly sensitive to night time noises).

I did not expect this. I had become complacent. There hasn't been puke in months and months, possibly not since 2010. Stu had come in a moment ago to tell me the kid was crying and that he was going in to talk to him. That is our usual course of action when the kid cries during the night. Stu goes in and says something along the lines of "Hey, buddy, it's night night time. You're tired. You'll feel better if you lie down and go back to sleep. It's night night time. We love you. We'll see you in the morning." And voila. The kid goes back night night. If I go in, however, it's a different story entirely. There are demands to sit in the chair for "one minute." There are requests for "one tiny little sip of water," with accompanying bent fingers indicating small amounts of water. There are requirements of huggies and nose kisses and uppies huggies and neck kisses and belly kisses and if we're really awake, synchronized jumping (the kid in the crib, me on the floor, both of us holding on the crib rail). I am in his room for no less than 35 minutes while Stu can waltz out in 35 seconds.

"Yeah," Stu says, "I heard a wet cough." That's never good.

11:31pm
We enter the room to a weeping and coughing kid whose pajamas are dripping vomit. I peel his pjs off as his tears wane and sniffles begin. I lift him out of the crib and place him on the floor and begin the wipe down as Stu works on the bed, changing the sheets and hightailing it to the basement to get the sheets in the washer, because, of course, we now only have one clean sheet left and as any parent can attest, infant, baby, and toddler upchucking is just like sneezing. It's rarely a one-shot deal. So if the kid pukes again, we're out of sheets. I hold the kid for a few minutes, hoping and praying that he'll let me just put him back in his crib for night night and won't ask to sleep in our bed. I ask if he wants to sit with me before going back to bed.

"Yes, please. And then huggies and nose kisses?" which is what we do when he's getting ready for night night. I might be homefree on this one.

11:46pm
The kid seems to have fallen back asleep. Stu and I are in the basement, wondering what to do about the lint that has lodged itself in the drain of the sink that catches all the washer's water. We don rubber gloves and both try to fish out the swampy substance.

"I think we're just sticking it farther in," I note.

"You're right. I'll just get underneath and take the pipe apart and we'll take it out from there." My husband is a wonderful man. But he is not a handy man.

"You going to remember how to put the pipes back together?" I am having vivid memories of a Thanksgiving debacle which involved over an hour of pipe reconstruction after Stu decided to approach a clogged sink full of potato peels in a similar fashion.

"Yeah--this is much easier than the kitchen sink."

12:07am
"Do you want me to see if I can put it back together?" I watch Stu who is now lying shirtless on his back on the basement floor which is littered with droplets of digested carrot and corn which had fallen off of the kid's pajamas when Stu had tried to rinse them in the sink before it began to back up.

"No, no, I got it! See there is this little thing which slides up and attaches and I forgot about that piece and--"

Oh god. Please don't start explaining the structure of the pipe to me now. I'm never going to sleep again tonight. I just know it.

12:24am
All is quiet on the nursery front and Stu and I are back in the kitchen debating whether or not I should go back to sleep or wait a bit longer to see if there's more digestive action.

12:26am
A loud cough and some alien-type noise comes through the monitor. And then there is crying. We go through the whole sheet and pajama changing process again, minus the lint-filled sink drain. Amazingly enough, the kid goes back to sleep again.

3:33am
I can almost see the blue lights of the monitor from behind my closed eyes before I can hear the corresponding sobs. Stu is already up and on it. I am up and waiting for the report, which I don't always get. Every time Stu comes back from the kid's room after a mid-night visit, I want the whole low down: was he awake? Was he standing up? Did he ask for anything? Stu usually just says the kid was fine and falls back asleep instantly. I lie awake, eyes affixed to the monitor, waiting anxiously for another blip.

Stu walks in and leans into the ear-plug-accommodating stance, "He is demanding one minute in the chair with you." Stu rarely gives in to the kids middle o' the night demands, so I know this is serious.

I enter the nursery and the kid is standing, puffy red-faced, arms outstretched towards me. It's late, or early, and I want to go back to bed, but who can resist such a thing? He needs me. When I pick him up, his entire body collapses onto mine and I drop into the chair with his weight on top of me. He seems particularly warm and I'm concerned about fever, but the kid has inherited Stu's oven-like body temperature so I'm never quite sure whether it's just regular heat or a fever. Although truth be told, mothers know these things. In hindsight, I knew. I should have known to trust my knowing and given him some Tylenol right then and there. But no, I was hopeful. And I was stressed about missing work. And I thought maybe if I ignored everything he would just go back to sleep and we would have a normal day that was to begin in, oh, 3 hours.

3:48am
I try to put the kid back in his crib. Hey--it worked twice after the puking! But tears erupt immediately. I know he's sick and I realize that even if he were to go back to sleep by himself, sending him to school when he'd thrown up twice was probably pretty high on the irresponsible parent behavior chart. I give the kid an over-the-crib-rail huggie as the sobs subside.

"Would you like to sleep with Mommy in Mommy and Daddy's bed?"

"Yeah." I already know that a sick day is in my very near future.

"Okay, I just have to talk to Daddy and I will come back and get you."

"Okay," and he sits himself in the corner of the crib to wait.

I plod back to our bedroom and inform Stu that he will be sleeping on the couch and that the kid and I will be taking over the bed and that we should not be woken up in the morning. I plead my case for staying home with him, explaining how we can't possibly send him to school without knowing if he'll even be able to keep breakfast in his stomach. Plus, he might have a fever.

I bring the kid to bed and we sleep peacefully for the next three hours, after which he makes a break for it, slides off the bed, and gathers several of his Matchbox cars that have scattered across our bedroom floor in the preceding days and I have yet to have the wherewithal to put them anywhere else so they remain an obstacle course across the carpet. The kid lines the cars along the side of the bed (he has a thing about lines of cars. we figure it's either an early indicator of OCD or a future in a NASCAR pit.) and then removes two from the line and climbs back onto the bed via a step stool. I think that perhaps he is not sick and that we might go to school and I might not have to miss another day of work. But I feel the kid's head as he lies back down and I know he might still have a fever. We fall back asleep cars in hand, as if they were animals with which to snuggle.

Two hours later we wake up and there is crying and definitely fever. The rest of the morning entails attempts to actually see what the fever is amidst shrieking and kicking (102+...); attempts at harrowing diaper changes, the likes of which I have not previously known; and attempts to get the kid to ingest Tylenol which results in spit-out Tylenol on our couch, a dropper full of Tylenol flung across the living room, and a smattering of Tylenol across the wall which makes me consider whether or not the kid might be the next Jackson Pollock. There are also: calls to the day care (no we're not coming in today, and oh, really, there was another child who is home after having thrown up during the night?), calls to and from Stu, calls to and from my mother, calls to and from the doctor (possibly this is all a reaction to the flu shot and try to bribe the kid into taking some Tylenol), calls to and from work (yes, it was important for me to be at that afternoon meeting, and yes, i suppose sending out invites to a media event can wait one more day).

There is also a three-hour period during which I sit holding my ridiculously hot son. There is a part of it that is glorious. He hasn't let me hold him for that long since he was only months old. I adore having his cheek on my shoulder or pressed into my chest so that my sweatshirt zipper leaves a red and swollen impression when he lifts his head to turn over. And there is a part of it that is horrifying. Please take some Tylenol, I implore every time the kid wakes up in tears. It will make you feel better, I promise. Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!! he screeches. I cry miserably over my inability to make him feel better and hold him with all of my might.

There is also the hour during which my mother brings me a turkey wrap from the coffee shop down the street since by 2:30 I had eaten nothing all day. I am unable to get out from under the kid, so I eat my wrap with one hand, the coffee table pushed up against the couch to catch any of my plummeting poultry. And there is a lot of falling meat. I suggest that you never try to eat a wrap with one hand.

I also suggest that you try never to miss a moment of taking care of your sick kid, if you can help it. Because when the fever finally starts to break and he finally wakes up enough to request Sesame Street and he will finally take some Tylenol as he's engrossed in watching Grover look for a fly in--and under, and around, and next to--a bowl of soup, and asks for snuggles (much happier and cooler, and not crying snuggles), it's SICK. In the best way possible.

Let's Spend the Night Together

To this day, I remember my first sleep over. I was six years old and it was with my then best friend. And you know, when you are a six year old girl, your best friend is with whom you want to spend every waking moment. It began as an extended play date that progressed towards the novel idea of inviting her to stay for dinner (I'd never had a friend stay for dinner before! Oh my god--what joy and excitement to have my best friend sit at the family dinner table!) and moved on to calling her parents to ask if it was all right for her to spend the night. My friend and I were besides ourselves with glee when my mother got off the phone with her mother to announce that she would indeed be sleeping over. I remember her borrowing my nightgown (I still recall that it was a pink flannel gown with an illustration of a girl and a wall and a flower and there was a quote reading "I'm No Wallflower!" which made no sense to me at the time.) and when we hunkered down on the pull-out couch in the den, it seems as if there were hours of talking and giggling. And so, my love for sleepovers began. Ah, how I adored chatting and whispering and laughing long into the night with my friends.

When I reached my late teens, I still enjoyed a good sleepover, but by then, I actually favored sleeping and was usually ready to call it a night somewhere just after 1 a.m. (you know, when Saturday Night Live was over). But in the line up of friends whose houses I would sleep on weekend nights, there was always that one friend who wanted to talk a bit too long when I just wanted to go all Samuel L. Jackson on her.

I had forgotten about those moments of frustration until a night last week when the kid spent the night in my bed for the first time.

Yes, I know this will send shocks across the mothering universe, but let me put this question to bed (pun somewhat intended) immediately: no, the kid has never slept in my bed. Here's how that shook down: When Stu and I brought the kid home from the hospital, we spent about one week with the kid sleeping in a bassinet in our bedroom. Well, let me rephrase that. We spent about a week with the kid sleeping in a bassinet in our bedroom while I made sure he was alive during five minute intervals and the rest of the time Stu and I lied in bed fitfully listening to his various snortlings and rustlings. After the first week, he was sleeping well in his swaddle and my sister advised us just to put him in the crib in his room. We did, and we've never looked back, and apparently neither has the kid. 

Other than as a make shift trampoline or surface for the ever-engaging game of roly poly, the kid has expressed almost no interest in Mommy and Daddy's bed. Even during times of illness, when he's needed to sleep with someone (or more to the point, with Mommy), he's refused to sleep in our bed. And I mean flat-out refused. There is kicking and screaming and tears upon tears every time we'd carry him into our bedroom in a mere attempt to get him close to the bed. So instead, we've had to sleep on the chair in his bedroom (which is the most god-awful, bloody uncomfortable seating apparatus known to man and my behind is numb and aching within 45 minutes of holding the kid's body weight on top of me in that pit of agony IKEA calls a chair) and then the couch in the living room, which is fine, but getting a bit small for the two of us and leads only to toy-playing temptation at 3 a.m. It's not a win-win.

So last week, when the kid came down with a bronchial virus, I sat up with him in the chair for as long as my glutes could stand it and then I decided that enough was enough. I was not going to spend another minute in that chair or another night in the living room. We were going to sleep in the bed. I sent Stu to the couch and the kid and I took over the master bedroom. And wonder of wonder miracles of miracles, instead of screaming like a banshee like he has every other time we've tried to wrastle him in between our sheets, the kid was overjoyed by the prospect of sleeping in Mommy and Daddy's bed.

I was overjoyed as well and was enraptured by the notion of sleeping with my boy in my arms, snuggling the night away, reveling in our bonding experience. That is, until he turned into the sleepover buddy you just wished would go to sleep already. Allow me, if you will, to run down what occurred between 2-4:30 a.m.:

- No less than 17 sips of water from the glass I keep on my night table, after each of which he said, "Just this one, Mommy. And then I be all done."
- No less than 12 decisions to switch sides with me which entailed his sliding off of whatever side of the bed he was on and walking to the step stool we keep at the foot of the bed and climbing up into the bed, despite my insistence that we could switch sides without his getting down.
- About 14 renditions of Mr. Golden Sun, complete with requisite arm movements (Thanks for teaching the kid a Barney song, day care. Thanks a lot.).
- One request to turn off the ceiling fan, because "Mommy, it's windy in here. Please turn that off. I don't like the wind. It gets in my hair."
-About 39 requests to fix his pillows and pull up the covers so he could "sleep like a big boy."

And in between all of this, was my constant refrain, "Sweet pea, it's night night time. We need to go to sleep. If you can't go to sleep here, you'll have to go back to your bed. If you'd rather sleep in your bed with Padding Bear (Paddington Bear) and Morris (one of the Wild Things) and Ernie and Bert (self explanatory) and Blue Dog (I think this might be the dog from Blue's Clues, but I can't be sure as it's a generic stuffed animal that happens to be a blue dog, but since Blue is the only blue dog I know of and since Charlie actually named the thing Blue Dog, that's what I'm basing my assumption on), that's fine, but if you want to stay here, you need to close eyes and go to sleep."

Which was always met with an "No, I want to stay here. Okay, Mommy. Close your eyes." Oh, how I wish I could! But I was too busy keeping them open making sure he didn't roll off the bed or maintaining a conversation regarding how it was dark outside because it's night night time. Oh, so you noticed? Go to sleep!

And miraculously, 2-1/2 hours later, he did. And we didn't move or talk until Stu walked in at 7:30. And I couldn't believe how happy I was to wake up with my little goose beside me resting peacefully, without a single cough in hours.


Late Breaking Post-Post News
Color it the fickle finger of fate or a misuse of irony, but as I finished writing that post last night, the kid started crying. As usual, Stu went in and he was barely awake and settled back down in no time. An hour later, the crying began again and Stu could not console him. We believe new molars were the culprit. Regardless, I began sitting with the kid in the chair and the tears stopped and then he began to slide down off my lap.

"Where are you going?" I asked. He pointed towards the door.

"You want to go in the hallway?"

"To Mommy's bed."

Ruh roh.

Yes, I spent the night with him. Sometimes there's no other way. Amazingly he didn't utter one word between 11 p.m. and 6:45 a.m. except to request that he accompany me to the bathroom somewhere around 3 a.m. I thought I would leave him sleeping in the bed, but he caught me trying to jump ship and asked if he could come with me. So he stood quietly in the bathroom until I was finished and went right back to sleep when we returned to the bed.

I'd say it was all very sweet, and part of it was, but the morning unfolded in a disastrous fashion which makes me a bit fearful for tonight. Such is life with a toddler, right? Or maybe tonight, instead of The Rolling Stones, it will be John Lennon and it will be (Just Like) Starting Over. Or would that be "sleeping over?"