Piss on potty-training

Let it be known: I HATE POTTY-TRAINING.

I would have been perfectly content to let N continue wearing diapers, but I started to feel a little pressure from D. I guess maybe he talks to guys at work who's kids are N's age? The fact that N is now 3 was some motivation, especially when literally every kid in her playgroup is potty-trained or being potty-trained if they are younger than her.

Pull-ups do not work for N because they are glorified diapers as far as she is concerned. If it even remotely wicks the moisture away from her heiney-butt, she will not even think about stopping whatever she is doing to pee.

So I have just been sticking her in underpants, and she has been doing pretty well. Yesterday, she peed at the dentist's office, and then when we got to the allergist, I asked if she needed to pee-pee again. She said no, and then proceeded to flow all over her tights and soak her tennis shoes. Now I carry around extra panties and pants, but I do not bring extra shoes. She cried and cried, which is probably a good thing because I don't think she wants a repeat of that experience.

She has pooped on the potty one time, for which she earned a bag of M&Ms, but she refuses to do it again, even though she knows the reward is another bag (small, individual bags of M&Ms, mind you).

Today at the zoo, I took her to the potty twice, and she wouldn't pee. She started getting really lovey towards me, sitting on the pot saying, "Mommy, I love you," which usually means she needs to take a crap. So I wasn't surprised to find a load in her underpants by the time we got to the gorilla exhibit. We went to the Australia section and put on clean underpants (and she peed in the potty). She and a little friend frolicked at the playground for 10 minutes or so, and by the time we started heading to go ride the carousel she had dropped a bomb again. Damn it!!!!!

Now changing a diaper is a picnic compared to dealing with poopy underpants. It is like a juggling act in which you don't want to actually touch the stuff you are juggling. Trying to keep the poop balls from falling on the floor as you're removing the underpants is a royal pain. And at least a diaper you can toss in the garbage. Underpants you have to fold up and carry around with you until you can get home and throw them in the washer. I've taken to carrying around the clear sacks the newspaper comes in, which can hold a pair of size 9 tennis shoes, a poopy pair of panties and a pair of tights with room for more if needed.

Aside from the fact that potty-training entails dealing with one of my most unfavorite things in the world (poop), it also requires haranguing in some form or another. Asking whenever we set foot in a restaurant, a doctor's office, anyplace with a public restroom, "Do you have to pee?" Asking before we head out the door, "Do you have to pee?" Asking whenever I see her hand move in even the slightest way toward her crotch, "Do you have to pee?" I am sick of hearing myself ask, so I can only imagine she is about to strangle me.

I hate the nagging. When I was a kid, my mother would call me for breakfast by giving me a head's up on the time, "C, it is 6:45." Now had my mom waited until 6:55 or 7:00 to call again, that would have been one thing, but mom's reminders were like this: "C, it is 6:45." "C, it is 6:47," "C, it is 6:48 and 23 seconds." AHHHHHHH! It drove me nuts (although not nuts enough to actually get out of bed). So me asking N over and over about peeing sends me back to my own mother's repetitiveness. And it is everyone's worst nightmare to turn into their own mothers, right?

Who in the hell would have known that potty-training for me would bring out so many of my obsessive-compulsive issues? Probably most everyone who knows me, actually. I am usually the last one to realize anything.