The Princess and the....Pee

So what's the average time spent potty training, these days? A couple months? A few weeks? A day or two? Hmmmm....or maybe 2 and half years! My daughter is a very smart little girl. Demanding, but smart. We are nearing her 4th birthday in less than a month, and I must say that the thought of that breaks my heart a little bit.  However, the reality that she continues to pee her pants on a daily basis takes some of that sadness away.  I let this fact slip with much trepidation, as there is a tremendous amount of judgement that goes along with an admission such as this one.  Let's face it, "mommy land" is judge mental, and is just the grown up version as "girl world". The two are hand in hand. It can be fairly nasty at times. So here I am, as usual, airing my secrets for the world to hear, and admitting to yet...again...another "failure" as a mommy.

"Do you think there's something wrong with her"? 

"Oooh, that's not normal"? 

"Have you taken her to the doctor"? 

These are just some of the lovely comments that I have received in recent months.  I am fully aware, that this has all been uttered by people who truly do care, and are honestly concerned about my child's well being.  However, let me be the one to correct all concern.....

My child is lazy. That's right. You heard it. There is no medical reason, other than her own bloody laziness that is attributing to this "condition". Frankly, if she doesn't want to take the time to walk away from what she is playing or doing, she would rather just pee her pants. Now there's something as a mother to be proud of. I have heard so many people say that girls are so easy to potty train....Ha!  Come on over. Give my daughter a try! I'm losing my marbles. Actually, at this point, I have just began to accept it.  She is quite capable of letting me know at the worst moments, that she has to go "potty". And she has proven to me that she has the ability to hold it. She has also proven, that she will wait until the last possible moment, at all times, before she is willing to go. This has proven to be a tremendous amount of fun for me. 

My favorite, is at the grocery store. When the lineup is really long, I get to the front, and she starts to dance...."I have to go potty". Are you kidding me? Now? Really? By this point, frankly, I could care less if she pee's her pants. This is the difference between first time mommy's and mommy's who have more than 1. Time becomes more important than another pair of pants in the wash.

Like hell am I going to lose my place in line! Does this make me a bad mom? Because I'll tell you that on more than one occasion, I have been given the "look" from bystanders in grocery stores, at school, the mall....all while I am making snap decisions that I am well aware look bad from the outside! I get it.  Mother hood is not pretty. Anyone who is making it look like it's super easy is a liar. That's right....liar. 

I will say, that her lack of concern in this department has definitely caused me to "close up shop".  Are you kidding? I have no interest to spend 10 years revolving my life around everybody else's potty schedule. Now I realize that I probably spend a lot more time blogging about bodily functions, but let's get real here for a second. Mom's don't say it. We just don't. We trudge along in the trenches, smiling and not really admitting to each other things like this. It's embarrassing. It makes us feel like failures, because it looks like everyone around us isn't struggling. When the reality is, they just are too scared to admit it. Because, they...like you...are afraid of being judged. Now I know that we all have our mommy friends that we get in to the nitty gritty with. Of course, I'm not saying that. What I am saying, is that maybe if as mommy's we judged strangers a little less and found more compassion in their struggles, things would be a lot different. 

Even if I am really organized, which I have to be, and manage to get her to the bathroom before any accidents happen, I am faced with yet, another dilemma. Something that I had never thought about when my kids were little. The "boy to girl" ratio. My son is now old enough to realize that he is going into the girls washroom. He is 6. Sometimes I feel like that old proverb about the goose, the wolf and the bag of grain. Think about it for just a second. There are situations where I am comfortable leaving him waiting outside. There are situations where I am o.k. letting him go into the men's washroom by himself. There are others where I am NOT.

We travel to the U.S.A a lot, being right on the other side of the border. We were at the mall. Miss C had to go potty. We are in another country. Perhaps I am over protective and nuts, but there was NO WAY I was leaving him to stand outside the ladies washroom, beside the front entrance of Target, while I waited for my independent, yet lazy 3 year old to go to the bathroom. Because I am NOT aloud to help...that creates a whole other set of issues that I will write about soon enough....

He lost his mind. I don't mean a little. I mean totally blew his lid, right there in the front door of the ladies room. I am struggling with a 3 year old about to pee her pants, a double stroller full of shopping bags, I am now blocking the doorway, and my 5 year old is literally holding onto the door jam screaming "no, I won't do it, I won't go in there"....as I am repeating the phrase "we are in another country, and your sister has to go potty, I can't leave you out here by yourself". I am sweating, disheveled and probably looked like a complete and absolute failure as a parent. However, my child wasn't kidnapped that day, so I suppose I wasn't such a failure after all. 

In recent months a 6 year old boy was assaulted at our local Costco, in the washroom by a 10 year old boy. He crawled under the door and bit the boy in the face, while the dad and sister stood outside the door waiting. Who's overprotective now! 

Are we always going to make good choices, when faced with decisions on the fly? Hell no. We are not. 

Are we going to make the decision that we feel is in the best interest of our children, at that moment, despite what kind of criticism we are going to get from family, bystanders, friends or strangers? I certainly hope so. I hope that I don't ever make decisions based on what I am afraid others will think. They may "know" my children....but they sure didn't "make" my children. Therefore, I'm pretty sure that no matter what ridiculous rule, or socially unacceptable decision I make....it's no ones to judge. 

Unless I am beating the hell out of my kids, or abusing them, then please step in. Clearly I have lost my marbles at that point.

So what! My daughter pee's her pants.....all the time. It could be worse. I hope that by the time we reach high school, this will have passed. As parents, a huge amount of the things we go through with our kids are "phases" and they do eventually pass. We hope.

As I write this, I hear from the other room..."mommy, I peed on myself". Now if that isn't art imitating life, I don't what is.  I'm happy to know that in our family, she is accepted for who she is. Thankfully, I am pretty laid back when it comes to this situation. I'm happy knowing that she'll never be spanked, or abused for the character of who she is. I'm happy knowing that I have the ability to find it funny when she puts her little hands up in the air and says "I just don't know why I keep doing that". She is amusing. She makes me laugh...and soon enough I know that she will too make me cry. She is everything that I have ever wanted in a little girl, but didn't know it. She is high maintenance, demanding, independent, and defiant. She is also funny, sweet and so full of love. She is everything that her daddy and I wished for. Even if she leaks....