Don't Push Me

We are in potty training hell. Or non potty training hell. Depends on how you look at it.

(Depends! Get it?! That was not intentional, but Depends may ultimately be necessary).

We attempted to potty train B several months ago. He had zero interest. Zero. As in, I know you told me that I could have candy, or a new Spiderman toy, or a new car, or even a pony, if you would please just pee on the potty. But I'm just going to stand here and pee on the floor. Every time. Thanks for the offers, though.

So we stopped trying. I decided I was not going to torture myself. Our pediatrician agreed. Everything I read agreed. He was three. He was likely perfectly capable of being free from diapers if he wanted to, but had obviously decided that he didn't want to. Three-year-olds are control freaks. And I'm on my second three-year-old now. There's a whole lot I don't know. But there is one thing I do know. In a battle of the wills with a three-year-old, I will lose.

So we let it go for a while. I got a refund for his preschool registration. Three-year-olds are supposed to go to pre-school. At least this was my thinking before I had my current three-year-old. As it happens, three-year-olds who wear diapers can't go to preschool. That was just fine with him. And really, it was fine with me, too. It was also fine with Jimmy, who was perfectly happy to hear that we wouldn't be writing another monthly check.

I realized that maybe B's lack of readiness to get out of diapers was a sign that he also just wasn't ready for preschool. And while part of me thought that my job as his mom might be to push him whether he was ready or not, to help him become ready, another part of me decided that this time, I probably needed to follow his lead.

So, I decided that, at three, he didn't need to be pushed into preschool. Or potty training.

Recently, though, it occurred to me that in two months, he will be four.  Four.  Four-year-olds, in the absence of specific developmental or physiological conditions, do not wear diapers. And, pre-school is coming fast. Like it or not, he will be going in the Fall. There is a part of me that thinks he still may not be ready, but the reality is that kindergarten is the following year. Having recently had a child in kindergarten, I can say that it's not what it used to be. Kindergarten is work. There is structure. It is also all day. As much as he may not be ready for preschool in the Fall, if he doesn't go to preschool, he is really not going to be ready for kindergarten.

So now I need to push him into preschool and potty training.

Unless I home school.  I would seriously consider doing so, if not for the fact that the two of us home together all day, every day, for several more years would result in one of us spending the majority of our days in our bedroom. (I would be OK with this, but I'm pretty sure it's not really considered "homeschooling" if the one allegedly doing the schooling locks herself in her room with a bottle of tequila).

But at least homeschooling would get me out of potty training, which is not going exceptionally well. In fact, it's going really crappy. But not in the way one would want it to. B now keeps his underwear dry. All morning. Like it's his job. In fact, we've told him that it is his job, but I'm thinking that may have been poor word choice on our part. Yesterday, he would not go outside. He would not get dressed. He would not play with his brother and I. He just sat on the couch, alternately crying and screaming, waiting for nap time, when he knew he would get a diaper. Which he immediately used.

Eventually, he did agree to have lunch. He wanted peanut butter and jelly. He ate very little of that and decided that he wanted cornbread. He took two bites of that, and decided that he wanted... pickles.

"Ten of them, mom".

I decided I was not fighting the lunch time battle along with the potty training battle. Maybe he needs me to push him toward potty training, but he probably doesn't need to be pushed toward balanced meals at the same time.

Besides, I don't have the energy for both.

You want pickles for lunch? Knock yourself out.

At least pickles are a vegetable. Aren't they?

Who am I kidding? At this point, I would have let him an ice cream sundae for lunch.

Sometimes you just have to pick your battles.

And not battle your pickles.