Rubbed Raw

It is late, and I am tired.  And discouraged. And I kind of hate myself.

As I write this, it is Tuesday.  The day I published this post.  About the wonder of motherhood.

And of course it was a terrible day with my kids.

The morning was more potty training, a very cranky Sophie, some missed opportunities by me to teach her.  Discouragement.  At one point I yelled at her so loud to be heard over her yelling that pain instantly shot through my throat and instead of scolding her, I launched into a coughing fit.

In the afternoon I had made arrangements for Joshua to have a fun time with his Aunt Bethie and cousin James.  Special for Joshua, who has basically been prisoner in this house the past ten days due to potty training.  And I needed to have some alone time with Sophie do work on potty.  Because some of the missed opportunities I have with her, are because I am tending to my other child.

But not much was accomplished during our time together.  Then finally at 3, I put her down for a nap, because she was exhausted and cranky and I needed a break.  She went right to sleep. PERHAPS because she had gotten up at 6 am with wet pants.  She used to sleep til 7:30 before potty hell began.

Then my nephew James came home with Joshua. MORE special fun for Joshua.  He was thrilled.

Until James left and daddy wasn’t coming home before bedtime because he had to fix his car, and then he threw a huge crying fit, and I lost it. And of course right before this, Sophie peed her pants.  Good times.

I marched him up to bed.  I threatened him.  He calmed down.  I read him his chapter of Chronicles of Narnia and I cried the whole time.  He asked me what was wrong and I told him I was sad because he had thrown a fit, and Sophie had peed her pants.  Then I finished reading and cried some more.  Then when it was time to pray, and I asked him what he was thankful for, he said, “Daddy, James, and Lucas.”  His dad, his cousin, his friend.  That’s it.

I tucked him in and went to get Sophie for bed.  She was less than cooperative.  I let her nap too long and now she’s up in her room running around at 10 pm and I’m starving because I haven’t been to the grocery because I’ve been chained to this house POTTY TRAINING and there’s not much to eat and I’m not going to cook a meal for myself at 10 pm especially when there is no husband to help me eat it.

I would like, for a week, for someone competent to come in and take over my life,  put it in order for me, and then I’ll come back, and maybe by some miracle, someone will have missed me.

But at this point, vacation and appreciation seem pretty far off.

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I Demand REPARATIONS!!!

Today has been a very trying day for me.  First, I had to RACE to the preschool I was interested in sending Sophie to next fall because Cortney (who is also sending her son there) was actually on top of it and you know, called to see how many spots they had left and it was not many.  So we both raced over there…and signed the kids up…and I really didn’t even have time to feel emotional about it.

UNTIL.  I realized that this now means I have a definite “drop dead date” on when I have to have to world’s must STUBBORN child potty trained, and then, I felt not just emotional, but SUICIDAL.

Potty training Joshua was horrible.  (Don’t believe me? Click here! or here! or here!)  So, I thought with Sophie, I deserved a break.  I didn’t push it.  I wasn’t going to spend 6 months trying to get her to go potty.

When she turned three, and started grossing me out, I decided it was time.

Then we tried some intense training with her, and it made all of us MISERABLE.

And today was another day in misery.  One poop on the floor, one pee in her undies during “rest time”, and now, at 7:52 PM, she’s been running around pantsless, spent more time on the potty than not, and has been holding it for FOUR HOURS at least. Update: we finally put her to bed at 9 PM, she still had not peed. So over 5 hours she held it.  And then we put her in a diaper for bed, because we have no mattress pad!  Guess what I’m going to get today!!!!!???

I’m not gonna make it.  She’s never going to preschool, or I will never see her go, because this is gonna kill me.

WHERE THE HELL IS MY BREAK????

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The Bathroom Stall-er

Two nights ago, I got Sammy all nice and packaged up in his jammies… both pairs, since it’s a little chilly in his room, and of course a onsie… and we sat down to snuggle in his rocker to read a book before bed. That is, until he interrupted our quiet time with this:

“I poop!”

“You have to poop?” I said, dreading the undressing and redressing and general delay of bedtime that this was about to cause. “I poop!” he happily replied.

So off we went… and sure enough, he was right.

Last night, the exact same thing happened – as soon as he figured out that we were headed for the rocker, and therefore he was headed to bed, he shouted “I poop!”

Again, we undressed. I sat him on the potty and I sat on the floor. We read books. We talked. We waited. An nothing happened. Eventually, I bundled him back up – onesie and jammies and jammies #2, and we headed back to his room.

As soon as we sat down in the rocker again, he started struggling. “Noooooo… I pooooop,” he said, although this time it was with more whining and less excitement.

This time, though, I wasn’t going to go through it again. He had a diaper on, the worst that could happen is that he’d go in it. And, you know, completely regress in his potty training. But late last night, it was a risk I was willing to take. Fortunately, he woke up this morning clean and dry, but this only means one thing.

He has figured out the perfect way to stall the bedtime procedures, the little bugger.

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