The Good Stuff

Crazy snow days sometimes call for school cancellations. I had a proposal due at work, so I jumped ship this morning and left Daddy in charge. I can't speak for what activities they did or didn't do while I was gone all day, but there were remnants of  icky fast food and toddler/dog-nados. Almost as soon as I walked through the door, Pickle was hollering my name from the top of the stairs. She ran down and I swooped her up for those delicious snuggles. Then I felt a warm liquid on my side...yep, she peed on me. I was shocked...since we're potty trained and we go in the potty. Whatever, it was just pee. Not an hour later...another accident. Then another. This went on almost all night. The last accident included peeing through her britches and walking around the house...trailing pee. I asked her what she was doing and why she peed on the floor. She didn't care...flat out ignored me and walked toward the garage. I warned her not to go into the garage before I cleaned her up, but she went anyway. I hauled her back in, cleaned her up, asked her why she didn't listen, then I set her on the couch to think about it. She cried...said she didn't want to listen, etc. It was fun. It was one of those "I'm using my mom voice to rationalize with a 2-1/2 year old" moments. I started to count the minutes to bedtime...still had 132.5 minutes to go. Crap.

She got over it and we moved on. I offered her twenty different choices for dinner and we settled on pancakes. It's a good week for meals, since she'll actually eat them instead of running away. I was on the uphill side of the battle..it was good. While we were watching a movie*, I had her doing jumping jacks, downward dog, and hopping like a kangaroo. Daddy then decided it was a good idea to teach her how to do a flip off the couch, onto a bean bag. What?! I held my breath on every jump...picturing broken limbs. 

Big Bird's First Day

Bedtime is always a fun ritual in our household. Pickle has been insisting that both parental units have to go "upstairs" to bed when it's her bed time. Tonight, she told me I had to take her upstairs and requested big bird to come with her. Big bird is pretty worn out, but he is the weekly favorite. Who am I to argue, it's not like she will put herself to bed and maybe big bird could help. On the way upstairs I asked her if she knew how much I loved her - she smiled at me and nodded. While I was taking my eyeballs out, she hollered, "I need help." She had big bird on the floor with a diaper and needed help finishing the job. I laid it out and walked her through the steps. The diaper job was complete, so she needed to tuck him in. I watched in awe as she laid him on the pillow and tucked him in. I told her she was doing such a great job and he was going to sleep well. Before we turned to go brush our teeth, she stood up on her tippy toes, gave big bird a kiss, and whispered her version of "night night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite". Damned if I didn't start crying right there. Then she sauntered into the bathroom, grabbed her toothbrush, and brushed like a big girl. I was tinkering in the closet and she brought big bird back and said he had to poop. I asked her if he really had to poop or if maybe she did. She just laughed, so I told her that he probably had a tummy ache or was tired, and needed some comforting. I said, “what does mommy do when you’re tired or don’t feel well?”. She put him over her shoulder and started patting his bum.

It was definitely a strange evening – one in which I googled “potty training regression” and I doubted my abilities to be effective in the moment, but by the end we all won. 

*It’s Hallmark Christmas movie season…my household is already sick of them and I’m only on day 2. They have 46 glorious more days left!