Worse than the occasional attitude and melt down, though, is potty training. I knew potty training wasn't going to be fun but, shit, it is worse than I ever expected. We have been well in to it for 3-4 months now, so it is getting a lot better, but for a while there I was contemplating the pros and cons of sending her to kindergarten in diapers. There was a period of time in the first few weeks where I was covered in some sort of fecal matter at least once every single day. Some days you have to scrub pee out of the carpet. Other days there are screaming, cryinf fits on the bathroom floor. I've had to plunge dozens of baby wipes out of the toilet and fill countless grocery bags with poop-covered paper towels, underwear, pull up diapers and clothing. The only positive to that is if you don't have a paper shredder you can hide all of your personal documents inside a bag of baby shit and no one will pick them out of the trash and steal your identity.
Since we have started the potty training we have received all sorts of advice from 'don't force it' to 'stick her in the car seat with no underwear on.' We came in somewhere in the middle. We got pull ups and Thomas the Tank Engine underwear, bribed her with gifts and candy and eventually she has gotten better about using the toilet. The thinking behind the underwear was that she would not want to pee on Thomas' face. That was a bit ambitious, as she didn't really seem to care at first. The best is when she just comes up and says "Daddy, I just peed in my Thomas underwear." Well, at least you owned up to it.
I think the worst part about it at this point, now that she is pretty consistent about going, is that a three-year-old going to the bathroom is not like an adult or a teenager going to the bathroom. If you are eating dinner or doing some work or cleaning up you can't just let her go alone. At first we would be reading book after book after book on the toilet. It has gotten a bit better in that sense, she can pull down her pants and go by herself, but you still have to drop what you are doing and wipe her ass and make sure she washes her hands when she is done. You have to examine the poop and pretend it is so great. Empty the pee out of the musical princess potty in to the regular toilet and constantly try and stop her from sticking her finger in her ass. It is just a lot of time spent in the bathroom with other people's excretion. That is what it comes down to.
Also, I have found that I no longer get any privacy when I have to go to the bathroom, either. She is always busting in like the Kool-Aid man, telling me that it stinks in there or making references to my 'dinky.' Before you have kids you think about a lot of things. One of them is not what term you will be referring to genitals as during potty training. We have come up with 'dinky' and 'crotch.' Sweet.
...
About six months ago Monica came home with a few of those tiny aquarium frogs they sell for a few dollars at Pet Smart. Thinking they would live a week or two she got a cheap tank and gave them to Av as pets. Well, all this time later, they are remarkably still alive. Or at least one of them is anyway. But the second one did not die of natural causes or weird frog tank disease. The details of its death are, in fact, shrouded in mystery.
A few weeks ago I was doing some picking up around Av's train table and glanced over at what I thought was a little plastic frog. Av has a lot of those toxic Dollar Tree plastic creatures. Lizards, farm animals, dinosaurs, etc... but the more I thought about it, the more I started to question if I had ever seen a frog in any of those bags. I took a closer look and realized, to my horror, that it appeared to be a petrified aquarium frog. Immediately, I jumped to the conclusion that it must have been Little Cat. That stupid dickhead probably got the top of the tank open and caught one. But upon further inspection- I picked it up with tweezers and examined the corpse in the bathroom like I was on CSI or something- there were no signs of trauma. No gashes, tooth marks, missing limbs. It was, in fact, a perfect, in tact frog corpse.
My next thought was that it must have been Av. Maybe she tried to catch one and took it out and the poor little guy just died. But Av is a squawker. She rats on everyone for everything, including herself. She would have said something about it at some point. Plus, I was afraid to ask her because I did not want to draw attention to the dead frog and have to have that conversation with her, either.
My only other theory is that the guy jumped out of the tank at a time when one off us had the lid off and was refilling the water. He jumped out, found himself lost and disoriented and made it as far as that corner of the living room before he finally died. One thing is for sure, he was there for a while. Which makes it even more strange that Av didn't notice him.
One final theory is that one of the snot-nosed kids from Av's birthday party did it. Maybe the one that threw up all over our living room carpet. I hate kids.
A few weeks ago I was doing some picking up around Av's train table and glanced over at what I thought was a little plastic frog. Av has a lot of those toxic Dollar Tree plastic creatures. Lizards, farm animals, dinosaurs, etc... but the more I thought about it, the more I started to question if I had ever seen a frog in any of those bags. I took a closer look and realized, to my horror, that it appeared to be a petrified aquarium frog. Immediately, I jumped to the conclusion that it must have been Little Cat. That stupid dickhead probably got the top of the tank open and caught one. But upon further inspection- I picked it up with tweezers and examined the corpse in the bathroom like I was on CSI or something- there were no signs of trauma. No gashes, tooth marks, missing limbs. It was, in fact, a perfect, in tact frog corpse.
My next thought was that it must have been Av. Maybe she tried to catch one and took it out and the poor little guy just died. But Av is a squawker. She rats on everyone for everything, including herself. She would have said something about it at some point. Plus, I was afraid to ask her because I did not want to draw attention to the dead frog and have to have that conversation with her, either.
My only other theory is that the guy jumped out of the tank at a time when one off us had the lid off and was refilling the water. He jumped out, found himself lost and disoriented and made it as far as that corner of the living room before he finally died. One thing is for sure, he was there for a while. Which makes it even more strange that Av didn't notice him.
One final theory is that one of the snot-nosed kids from Av's birthday party did it. Maybe the one that threw up all over our living room carpet. I hate kids.
...
Saw the Black Keys at the Garden a few weeks back. Disappointing set list and a whole lot of new fans who have never heard the real Black Keys, but otherwise they brought the freakin' house down. Very pleasantly surprised at how good they sounded in an arena. Dan Auerbach is still the man. These are arguably the best two songs of the night. Followed by some Gary Clark Jr. just because.
Saw the Black Keys at the Garden a few weeks back. Disappointing set list and a whole lot of new fans who have never heard the real Black Keys, but otherwise they brought the freakin' house down. Very pleasantly surprised at how good they sounded in an arena. Dan Auerbach is still the man. These are arguably the best two songs of the night. Followed by some Gary Clark Jr. just because.
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