Sunday, July 15, 2007

deep doo-doo

I apologize in advance to anyone whose delicate sensibilities may be offended by this posting, but I gotta get this out, so to speak. One of our many struggles with Stella is potty training. She has been able to use the toilet for nearly 2 years now, but only in the past six months or so has she used it regularly, and even now there are lots of slip-ups, here and at school.

Let's just say we are not yet at the point where she consistently goes to the potty rather than letting it happen in the pull-ups. This makes for lots of messes which require quite a bit of energy to clean up, but today was a definite low point. Bob had taken her to the bathroom, but she took the potty seat off the toilet and refused to use it. Then, a few minutes later, Bob returned to find that she had used the middle of the bathroom floor instead, and (this is priceless) put the bath mat over it to try and cover up the mess.

It took over two hours, several heated arguments, quite a few tears, and tons of elbow grease on everyone's part to clean everything entirely. By the end of it, Stella was not the only one who had let loose a bunch of crap. The place still stinks of it all, literally and metaphorically.

It's times like these I remember all too well what our midwife Jeannie said when, pregnant with Stella, I told her we were not interested in amnio. "Couples who have children with disabilities have a really high divorce rate." I thought she was just trying to scare me into having genetic testing.

To quote Garrison Keillor, We Are Still Married. God help us.
Yes, indeed, God help us.

2 comments:

Tara Marie said...

Yup, sounds like a lot of doo-doo.

How old is Stella again?

I ask because my Emma Sage was the same way....used the potty from the time she was two...not consistantly, and it was not until I just said 'enough is enough' and no more pull-ups that she finally completed her training [with some stubbern moments such as Stella's moment today.

I'm sorry the crap was flying...but I promise, she will finalize this process.

Unknown said...

Stella's five and half--I think just six months younger than Emma Sage...when did she start to really not need the pull-ups? I'm desperate here!!!