Big Gurl Bed

My mother has been on my case to transition Sophia to a big girl bed, but I’ve been very reluctant to do so. Sophia likes her cozy little house, a crib with a tent over it that zips shut, and I like having a place to put her in from which she can’t escape. I adopted a don’t ask, don’t suggest policy…if Sophia wasn’t asking to move, I wasn’t going to bring it up. Then, about a week ago, something happened to change my mind. First, a little back story: Oddly, Sophia was dry all night before she was dry during the day. Since she’s been in underwear full time, she’s only had two nighttime accidents. The first occurred UIB, under the influence of Benedryl, (She had a viral rash that covered most of her body.) She slept so soundly that she peed herself while sleeping and never woke up. The second was completely my fault—I gave her too much to drink at dinner time and forgot to toilet her before bed. She was so ashamed when it happened….I swore I would never make that mistake again. Back to a week ago: I hadn’t been sleeping much and so I took a little OTC sleep medication (coincidentally, the generic equivalent of Benedryl), popped in my ear plugs, and tried to make up for lost time. In a dream and far away I heard a voice calling, “Mommy! I need to go to the bathroom!” By the time I realized that the voice belonged to Sophia, she was screaming desperately, “Mommy! Help! I’m pee-peeing! I’m pee-peeing in my bed.” I ran into the room, unzipped the crib tent, but it was too late. She was already midstream, crying hysterically. Unthinkingly, I picked her up and carried her to the bathroom, as she continued to pee—in the crib, on me, across the rug, onto the tile—where I placed her on the toilet, still in her pajamas and still peeing. Her silky polka-dot pants ballooned out as it captured her urine before it soaked through and into the bowl. Humiliated and filthy, Sophie continued to bawl. I looked at my watch. 1 am. I had work the next day, but there was no other option. I had to clean her and the mess up. Sophie hates baths, and, as it turns out, she hates them even more when they are given at 1 am, particularly after she’s traumatized herself by wetting the bed. I tackled Sophie first, then the bed, then the floor. And I said out loud, as I shook my first up at the sky, clutching my sponge, “With God as my witness, I’ll never clean up a mess like this at 1 am again.” And then I sobbed a little myself. In the nights that followed, before I had an opportunity to put together Sophia’s toddler bed, I slept very poorly. Kevin offered to listen for her as well, keeping the monitor on in proximity to his room. But I couldn’t sleep knowing at any moment we could have a repeat performance of that terrible night. Finally, the next weekend while Kevin was away on business, I had a couple hours to assemble the bed. When I was finished, Sophie was elated. She immediately set to making it, covering it with blankets, pillows, and her entourage of 58 stuffed animals. At 5:30 pm, she began begging to go to sleep. “Please, Mommy? Please can I sleep in my new big gurl bed.” I was encouraged by this. Fool that I was. Three hours later: Over the monitor, I heard Sophia jiggling her bedroom door handle, the patter of her feet as she made her way across the carpet to the top of the stairs, and then her voice, punctuated by sobs, “Mommy, I can handle it! I can!” Apparently, she could not. This was now the fifth time she had climbed out of her big gurl bed in the last hour, and I was not having it. The first three times, I patiently returned her to her room and shut the door. The fourth time I gave her a warning: “You get out of bed one more time, Sophia, and you’re telling me that you can’t handle it and you’re not ready for a big girl bed.” “I can handle it,” she assured me, and climbed into bed. The monitor was silent for all of five minutes. Though it pained me to go upstairs, transfer the mattress from her bed to the crib, and lift her back into it as she sobbed, I was relived. This wasn’t going to go on all night. Once inside her crib, Sophia seemed to be relieved, too. She stopped crying almost instantly, popped a thumb in her mouth, cuddled Snakey-Pie and went to sleep. It was the last I heard of her until 7 am. Thank god. When I dragged my ass in there the next morning to retrieve Sophie from the crib, she patted her big girl bed thoughtfully, “I’m not ready for the bed yet.” She told me, “maybe when I’m a bigger gurl. Maybe when I’m four. Much much MUCH bigger,” she stood on her toes and reached upwards with her hands to emphasize her point. Could it be that Sophie is reluctant to let go of this last vestige of her babyhood? For all of her posturing, “I’m not a baby. I’m a big gurl,” and insistence that, “I can do it myself,” might there be a part of her that clings to the comfort of having all her needs met by another? Autonomy comes with a cost—personal responsibility. I think, intuitively, she knows this. And so for now, two beds fill Sophie’s room, one that offers boundaries and another that offers freedom. Each night the choice is available to her. I am confident she’ll opt for the latter when she is ready. Until then, I’ll keep my night job.

Very Superstitious

I am very very very superstitious. I was busy knocking on wood the other night—I think Kevin deigned to mention something about Sophia being healthy, and I started thumping away, ready to put my fist through the table to counteract the ill effects of his positive words.

Kevin, whose grown accustomed to such peccadilloes (and usually ignores them), looked at me with mild interest and said something intelligent about ancient pagan rituals surviving modern faiths. People still do engage in them, even if it’s contrary to what they now believe.

(I was sure that knocking on wood was a Jewish thing to do. But it turns out grim, fatalistic, magical thinking actually predates the Jews. We wikipediaed it.)

Thing is, if Kevin’s theory is correct, I’m an outlier. I really believe this stuff. I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop, terrified of saying something good, acknowledging the good things in life for fear that tragedy will immediately befall. And because I have this mindset…I actively exercise “confirmatory bias.” That is, I look for evidence that supports my way of thinking, and ignore evidence to the contrary, thus solidifying my position.

Bad things come in threes.
Step on a crack, break your mama’s back.
Knock wood.

So, you can imagine how hesitant I am to commit what I am about to say to paper. And I’m trying to see if I can simultaneously knock on wood and type at the same time.

Sophia has pooped in the potty for nine consecutive days. Notice, I didn’t say Sophia is toilet trained. That would be far too audacious, inviting the wrath of the gods. No. I am simply stating the facts. I realize our winning streak is subject to change at any moment. I am prepared for accidents at all times. And I do all that I can to prevent them.

I am the gnat in her ear: “Do you need to go potty?”
I am the PR director, “Sophie, tell grandpa the BIG NEWS!”
I am Miss Manners, “We don’t poop on princesses….”
I a cheerleader, “Mommy is SO PROUD that you are pooping in the potty like a big girl! Go SOPHIE!”

Here’s how I finally did it. Fed up with the pull-ups, I got rid of them. I told Sophie (much as a friend had suggested at least a month ago) that we were done with diapers. From here on in, it would only be big girl underwear. My neighbor sagely suggested buying lots of cheap underwear and treating them as disposable. (Hence the princesses panties.) Granted, I had some misgivings of how not green that was. (But neither are pull-ups or constantly laundering underwear.) And after just two accidents (the Discovery Museum incident) a bed-wetting fiasco that was completely my fault (forgot to toilet her before the nap, gave her a ton to drink, didn’t pick her up the minute I heard her stir because I was too busy chatting it up with my friend Elisa) and a lot of mortification on Sophia’s part (oh how she cried at the shame of having wet the bed), she’s been clean and dry.

What it simply boiled down to was: she was ready. Physically, emotionally and intellectually ready. And when she was, she basically trained herself.

So now I’ve done it. Tomorrow, I am sure, I will wake up to find my baby distraught, her bed soaked with urine (she insisted she didn’t have to go before bed), and the gods laughing at me, because I had the hubris to announce to the world that Sophia is done with diapers.

Perhaps some sort of burnt offering will appease them. Is it illegal to burn Pampers in your backyard?

We Don't Poop on Princesses

Who is responsible for the invention of pull-ups? Wherever you are, I have a bone to pick with you. These objects of modern convenience are the bane of my existence. They are the limbo of toilet learning—not quite diaper, not quite big girl underwear, they do nothing to promote pooping in the potty.

The fantasy:
1. That pull-ups would allow Sophia to be more independent as she learned to toilet—pulling them up and
down herself
2. I would avoid the unpleasantness of “accidents.”

The reality:
1. It is much much harder to clean a child who has pooped in a pull-up than one who has pooped in a diaper. It has to do with removing and containing the hazardous waste. In fact, I am contemplating writing up a step-by-step process to post for first timers as a public service.
2. A friend related this story, which basically sums up my main beef with pull-ups. Her two-year-old daughter, who is quite verbal, would ask before she eliminated: “Am I wearing a pull up or underwear?”

Yes, pull-ups allow our children to wallow in their own filth as long as they please, which, in the case of my daughter is “until I’m three,” as she announced yesterday. Once again, I assert, if a child can tell you when she is planning on being toilet trained, he/she is perfectly capable of doing it.

So, I bit the bullet. I went to Target, and—against my better judgment and all my principles—I bought the damn princess panties. I am very tempted to go into a princesses rant here, but I’ll save it for another day. Suffice it to say that I have nothing against royalty in general, I do have an issue with Disney marketing their products to my daughter from infancy and that she, along with every other girl I know, is able to recognize the brand pre-lingually. But I digress. She carried her precious princess panties all the way to the register and set them down gently on the conveyor belt. The whole time I babbled alongside her, “Now Sophia. On Wednesday we are DONE with diapers. That’s it. No more pull-ups. You are going to wear your princess panties from here on in. And there is a rule associated with wearing princess panties: We don’t pee or poop on princesses!” I was rather proud of myself. This seemed fairly straightforward and sensible. Sophie repeated what I said, internalizing the rule: “No Pooping on Princesses!” “That’s right,” I reinforced. “Very good. Starting Wednesday, we are just going to pee and poop in the potty.” “I will do my poops in the potty like a big gurl!” Sophie declared.

If this does the trick, it will be worth the sacrifice.

Of course, she wanted to put them on right away when we got home. I thought it was wise to build the suspense a little. “Nope.” I said, “we’ll start on Wednesday.” A tantrum ensued. “I want my princesses!” “Wednesday,” I repeated. “You know what you have to do.”

The next morning, she woke up dry, peed in the potty, and told me, “Mommy, no pull-ups. I’m done with pull-ups.”
“Really?” I asked.

“Yes!” She said. “I want my princess panties.”

“Okay,” I relented. Pulled them out of their hiding place. She chose Cinderella. The blue-eyed blond. I felt another pang of liberal guilt.

Sophia donned the panties. She stayed clean and dry throughout the morning, her nap and her time at the babysitters, gleefully whipping her pants down to display her hidden treasure for anyone with a pulse.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

I picked her up from her babysitter and announced that we were going to the Discovery Museum. “Hooray!” she said. I reminded her that no matter what we were doing, if she felt the urge to go, she needed to tell me. “There will be plenty of time to play, but we also have to make time for the potty.” “Okay,” she old me.

I tried when we got there. She obliged, but she didn’t have to go. I checked in with her at multiple points. Each time she insisted, “I don’t have to.” We were in the diner and I was serving her a strawberry milkshake when she assumed sumo position.

“SOPHIA!” I shouted. “WE DON’T POOP ON PRINCESSES!” Oh yes. I did.

But it was too late. There was no stopping her now. “I’m pooping! I’m pooping!” she cried, as I lifted her, still in squatting position, and ran with her to the girls room. As I pulled down her pants, one errant poo dropped down and rolled across the floor.

“Damn it!” Whoops. Did I say that aloud? I did my best to contain the mess and myself. I silently cleaned her up. Sometimes, it’s best not to say anything at all. Still anti-pull-up, Sophia went commando.

As with all things, there are many roads to the same goal. I suppose I could keep her in pull-ups until she turns the magic number of three. I could allow her to soil the princesses, one by one and then tell her that’s it, there are none left. (And then improvise, because I have no plan for what would happen next.) My plan should be based on the function of the non-pooping in the potty behavior. Only, the function eludes me.

Is it a control issue? Is it a fear? Does she want to keep herself a baby a little bit longer? She’s clearly uncomfortable when she does it. She talks about wanting to be a big gurl.

Someone said to me that there comes a time when it feels wrong to be changing your child’s diaper. For me that time has come. Perhaps what it boils down to is Sophia has to feel it too.

The Course of Potty Training Ne'er Did Run Smooth

We are driving up to my mothers. Looking up at the rearview mirror, I glance at Sophie who is wearing a thoughtful look on her face.

“Does grandma have a pink potty just for me?”

I try to remain casual. Any investment on my part in tone or facial expression is enough to incite rebellion, “Why, yes. Yes, I believe she does.”

“I think I want to go pee pee on that pink potty.”

I try to sound bored. “That sounds like a good idea.” And it was. An excellent idea, really. The best idea I had heard all day. The problem was, we were still about a half hour away from grandma’s. “The thing is, Sophie, you have to hold in your pee until we get to grandma’s house.”

“I will hold it,” Sophia is quick to assure me.

The word of a two year old is not enough for me. She needs some coaching on this one. I explain, “You’ve got to squeeze your muscles that hold in the pee.”

Sophie clenches her fists and squinches up her face real tight. “That’s it.” I tell her. “Keep doing that. Hold it in.”

A half an hour later, we pull into my mother’s driveway. My mom greets us at the car. My poker face belies the great yellow hope I am holding onto. “Mom,” I say, Buddha-like in demeanor, “it’s not a national emergency, but Sophia told me that she’d like to pee in your pink potty.” My mother catches my drift. She helps Sophie out of the car and up to the bathroom while I get our gear and follow them in. I can hear the thin stream hit the bottom of the plastic bowl before I see them. My mother is beaming. Sophie looks surprised.

“I did it!”

“You did!” My mother and I explode in unison. “Let’s do a potty dance!” I suggest, and we pony around the bathroom as Sophie watches, bewildered. I get the sense that this is an insufficient reward. So, we clap and congratulate her and marvel at the product of her efforts. Mom wipes her, pours the urine into the toilet and Sophie flushes it with great élan.

Let’s pause to take stock of what happened here:
• She knew she had to go to the bathroom
• She communicated that she had to go to the bathroom before she went
• She held it in for 30 minutes
• She peed in the toilet and appeared to feel proud of her accomplishment

Seems to me, the kid gets it. What more is there to grasp, really?

But then, she refuses to go the rest of the weekend.

A week passes, and though I routinely suggest the potty, I am routinely rebuffed. I decide that, perhaps, it’s time to pull out the big guns and get some Big Girl Underwear. So, on a night that Kevin has to work late, Sophie and I head over to the mall for a shopping expedition. We find the holy grail of panties. They are pink (“Pink and blue are my favorite colors!”) and they have a picture of a kitty on the front. (“I love little kitties!”) Not Hello Kitty! But some generic pussy cat strategically curled up you-know-where. A little inappropriate, I admit, but high fashion in the eyes of my toddler. We got a matching lunchbox and sweater, because you need to match your panties to your clothing and accessories when you are two. Damn Gymboree and their Gymbucks.

The next day, we are both jazzed about the panties. They are all the rage over breakfast. We talk about how we’ll try them out this afternoon (we were seeing a play that morning—not the venue I wanted to take Sophie for a diaper-free test drive) and we’ll show them to Daddy that night.

We see the play and stop off at a florist on the way home. Sophie announces, “I’ve got to go to the potty. Do they have a potty here?” The florist emerges from the backroom. She has a young child. She understands the import and time-sensitivity of this request. “You can use the bathroom upstairs,” she tells me. Again, I remind Sophie to hold it until we make it up to the bathroom. She takes off her diaper, and it’s dry as a bone. I hold her over the toilet, and to my great surprise, she pees. Once we are back downstairs she shares her success with the florist, who gives her a flower to celebrate the event.

We both leave, happy. I tell Sophie that she did a great job telling me she had to go to the bathroom and holding it until we got there. I tell her I think she is ready for the pink kitty underwear. We are giddy with excitement. We get home, tear off the (still dry) diaper, and Sophie dons the panties. She lifts her dress so I can get a photographic record of this great leap for Sophie-kind. We text Daddy the photo. I remind her that if she needs to pee, all she has to do is let me know, and I’ll take her to the potty. She nods.

I decide to make a picnic lunch, figuring if she has an accident, at least it will be outside. We have a lovely time and after Sophie has eaten her salmon salad sandwich and about forty grapes she stands up, half way.

Wait a second. Is she squatting?

Her face turns red. Her eyes get watery. And then she sports a beatific smile. “I made a poop in my panties.”

Diapers are Forever

I think that any two-and-a-half-year-old who knows the sound each letter makes and can decode 3-letter words should be able to pee in a toilet. Alas. Turns out one can develop reading skills before mastering bladder control. Apparently the former is not a prerequisite for the latter. Who knew?

So, although she is academically ready to attend school, Sophia is barred from the local preschool program. I got the call from the director two days ago while aimlessly wandering the streets of Target.

The call took me by surprise. A month ago the director told me that the school had been filled since last January. I had only half-heartedly placed Sophia on the waiting list, figuring we'd just have to wait until next year.

I could feel her smiling through the phone. “We’re pleased to let you know that we have an opening, and Sophia was the next one up!” This is a school that is several blocks from my house. One that has really flexible scheduling options. One the neighbors have been raving about.

Sophia was dismantling a display of sun block. “Really? That’s wonderful!” I shot Sophie a look and mouthed PUT THEM BACK.

“So, as long as she’s toilet trained by September….” And then lightening flashed across the ceiling and it started to rain. Right there in Target. I think someone was playing an organ over the loudspeaker.

Six months ago...

It had all started out so promising. We bought her a potty. There was a picture of a girl on the box who looked very much like one of her friends, a bigger girl she looked up to. Sophie nicknamed it the “Callie Potty.” She sat on it. Put her dollies on it. Even made realistic sounds as she pantomimed their toileting behavior. Then, while we were out to dinner one night, the babysitter called, ecstatic, “She peed on the toilet.” We cheered in the restaurant, called my mother and almost missed our movie.

She went again, once or twice, and then…nothing. Worse than nothing. Flat out refusal. If I casually suggested that she sit on the toilet before a bath, she’d screw up her face so that her lips stuck way out and her eyes got all squinty and she’d shout, “No. I. Don’t. Want. To!”

I adopted a “just ask, don’t push” policy, hoping that when she was ready, she’d go. But secretly, I worried that I missed my window of opportunity. Now, her heels firmly dug into her general oppositional 2-year-old stance, she declares, “I do not want to pee on the toilet. I want to go in my diaper like a little baby.”

Again, if you can articulate that…shouldn’t you be able to sit on a toilet and do your business? I am convinced it is not a matter of skill, but of will.

And without the will, she won’t. Regardless of how much one can spend in pursuit of potty training.

For those who are not there yet (and others who were in my shoes many years ago) you will not be surprised to learn that potty training, like all other aspects of child development, is an industry. There are small, free-standing receptacles children “go” in that you have to empty into the real toilet and clean, adaptive rings that you can set atop the real deal so tiny tushies don’t fall in, and folding travel seats that have been known to pinch babies’ butts. There are potties that praise, cheer and sing. There are toileting books, videos and dolls. There are how-to manuals and charts and stickers.

And the programs. Oh the programs. Three-day Potty Training. Potty Training Boot Camp. The No-Cry Potty Training Solution. Early Start Potty Training. And yes, even Toilet Training in Less than a Day.

But, according to research (and, anecdotally, parents I know) you can push and cajole and praise and reward and work at it. Or you can wait. Apparently, left to their own devices, children will train themselves. Free of pressure and expectations they typically wake up one day and decide, that’s it. No more diapers for me. This usually happens around three years of age—give or take. I have even had parents of these children tell me that their kid never had an accident…and they never looked back.

This method (or lack thereof) is really appealing to me. No confrontations. No M&Ms. No props. No programs. No sweat.

But it also means…no local nursery school. At least not this one; not for now. Well, so be it. I was prepared to wait another year anyhow. Let's just hope it isn't that long before Sophia decides she's ready to ditch the diapers.

Toilet Talk

Kevin and I are compatible in many ways, but we have very different attitudes, mores and comfort levels when it comes to toilet talk:

My loud, Northeastern, Jewish family was obsessed with poop. The frequency, duration, and consistency of one’s bowel movements was a gauge of good health and had implications for one’s happiness. I can remember, from a very young age…but lasting well into late childhood…my father bending over me, inquiring, did I need to make an eh-eh? (To this day, he will still ask me about the quality of my BMs, if I’m not feeling well.) At dinner, whether you had gone that day was considered to be an acceptable topic of conversation. Both my parents left the door open for business while they were doing their business. As a result, I grew up with a causal attitude towards and, dare I say, a penchant for toilet talk.

Kevin, my Protestant, Mid-Western husband, is quite the opposite. Poop was something that happened behind closed doors. Early on in our relationship he announced that he did not make BMs, but rather “pooted talcum powder.” I smiled at his modesty, but after the intimacy of 10 years together, the question of whether he does indeed poo like the rest of us remains a mystery to me. If he does, he has taken great pains to leave no evidence of this fact.

When we had a child, I warned Kevin that even if he did not poop himself, his daughter most definitely would—and we were BOTH going to have to deal with it. Kevin was resigned to this fact, but I don’t think he imagined in his wildest dreams how much I would want to talk about it: the color, the consistency, the frequency, the contents was all fair game.

In the early days, I took data, noting when she pooped to ensure that she was soiling the right amount of diapers each day. I finally stopped when I felt confident that what was coming out was indicative that enough was getting in. Breast milk poos were the best: mustardy in consistency, faint in order, easily wiped away. I dreaded the day when she would start to eat solid foods and her BMs would become messier, smellier, and more abundant. I even delayed solids, in part, because I didn’t want to have to deal with the fall out. But eventually there came a point where I had to feed my daughter, regardless of how it would transform the contents of her diaper.

As Kevin was generally at work when Sophie let loose with the chocolate mousse, I was the primary cleaner-upper. Which, compounded by the wrestling matches that took place atop her changing table, piqued my interest in early toilet training.

So, much to Kevin’s chagrin, I have begun a campaign of what I call poo awareness. So far, it’s been fairly successful.

If suddenly, the room is, say, smelling like rotten eggs I ask, “Sophia, where’s the poo?” She pats her bottom and replies, “poo.” Then we march upstairs to the changing station where, after I’ve pinned her, I remove the offending diaper and hold it up for her to take a good look.

“Sophia. This is your poo.” I instruct. “PU STINKY!” which is all she needs to hear to reach for the diaper to get a closer look. “Poo,” she echoes, reverently. Similarly, when changing a wet diaper, I again hold it up for her inspection. “Pee. This is your pee.” “Pee!” Sophia repeats, diligent student that she is.

Pretty soon, under my tutelage, Sophia came to want to talk about her excretions. Each morning, when I removed her five-pound Pampers, Sophia guessed happily “Poop?”

“No,” I corrected her, “pee. You went pee,” and show her the evidence.

Then came the status updates. We’d be playing in the basement, when she’d suddenly grab her diaper and exclaim, “Poop!” Skeptical, I’d give her the sniff test, and generally she was wrong, but I would change her anyway…assuming that she had wet her diaper and was aware that SOMETHING had happened DOWN THERE. Even Kevin got excited as she began to make these announcements. And on multiple occasions I caught him having conversations with Sophia about her diaper action while he tended to her needs.

I decided it was potty time. We went to Buy Buy Baby and I quickly became overwhelmed by the choices. Did we want a potty that cheered and sang when you peed on it or did we want one that had “real flushing action?” Did we need a multitasking toilet that could also serve as a step stool and a kneeler or did we want one that would later become a training seat? Sophie became impatient, begging to get down from the shopping cart as I fretfully weighed the options. We finally walked away with a modest model that had a cushy foam seat. I decided that if she was going to be spending a lot of time on this thing, comfort should be my primary concern.

Sophia was charmed by the potty and immediately climbed into it. Fearful she’d make a habit of this, I lifted her out of plastic pot and explained what I wanted her to do with it. She pointed to the potty and shouted, “Pee!” I felt encouraged by this. Now, I casually have her sit on it when the mood strikes me or she makes one of her pee-pee proclamations—but, alas, she has yet to christen it.

Just days ago, I set her down on it and urged her to pee, making sounds that I hoped would inspire her to action. She sat there with a book, popping up when finished, her onesie flapping against her bare behind. Standing on the cold tile floor, a pool of urine formed at her feet. She looked up at me proudly, beaming, “Pee!”

Looks like Daddy’s gonna have to put up with our potty mouths a little while longer.