Smiling Mom

The kids and I were visi­ting a new church today.  It’s been my quest to find a church that bet­ter fits the value sys­tem and core beliefs I hold dear.  We’ve been to seve­ral churches this past year.  This Sun­day was no excep­tion.  Today we tried Presbyterian.

Thank good­ness Chris and Claire have adven­tu­rous spi­rits.  They try on each church with excitement.

I was a few minu­tes early to the ser­vice today, giving us enough time to use the bath­room and find the Sun­day School room.

As we wal­ked down the hall we pas­sed an ama­zing sight.  There were thirty to forty elderly women and men stan­ding together in bright white cot­ton robes with white sashes lining their collars.

One man in par­ti­cu­lar was breath-taking.  He stood over six feet tall with white hair and a long white beard.  Pic­ture Santa but taller and thinner.

At this sigh my son, Chris, loo­ked up at me and said with as much cla­rity and con­vic­tion as an almost six year old can mus­ter, “Mom, that must be where all the angels gather.”

Maybe it was because the sight was so ama­zing.  Maybe it was his inno­cence.  But my breath caught in my throat and my eyes began to sting.

My boy saw his first angels.

At that moment I knew today was going to be a great day.

Seve­ral years back I thought I knew everything about parenting.

OK, let’s be honest, most of the time I still pre­tend know everything…but I digress.

My son was extre­mely easy to potty train.  So easy, in fact, that by the time he was 2 years and 4 months old he was wea­ring big boy undies during the day and was dry most every night.

Nice, right?  Well, then came my daugh­ter.  She was also day potty trai­ned by two and a half.  But night­time trai­ning was a whole dif­fe­rent story.

Claire sleeps.  Like really sleeps during the night.  There’s no waking her.  And although this is great in so many ways, it is rot­ten when it comes to her abi­lity to recog­nize her body’s cues during the late hours of the night.

Fast for­ward to February.  Claire had recently tur­ned four and was still hap­pily wea­ring her large pull-ups to bed each night.

One day we acci­den­tally ran out of those damn absor­bent pads for­cing night­time potty trai­ning upon us.

Hold me now.

At an utter loss as to what to do, I reached out and asked for help.  I sent a mes­sage to one of my high school friends who has potty trai­ned all six of her dar­ling chil­dren. I asked what she did with any of her reluc­tant night­time potty trainers.

Here’s what she said:  For both of her difficult-to-train chil­dren, she deci­ded to take the dia­pers off all together and equip the bed with those potty pads.  She said she pre­pa­red her­self for a month of nightly sheet chan­ging.  At the end of the month, both children’s bodies had adjus­ted to the new rou­tine and there were no more accidents.

While men­tally pre­pa­ring for this month-long pee fest I found myself goo­gling varia­tions of the phrase, “night­time potty trai­ning” again and again.  On one blog post a woman was asking for advice and help trai­ning her daugh­ter.  A lady who had found suc­cess in an odd way left an obs­cure com­ment on her post.  (I wish I still had the link..)

Here’s what she said:  She suc­cess­fully potty trai­ned her daugh­ter by (get this) inc­rea­sing her daughter’s water intake during the day.  Let me say this again… She made her daugh­ter drink more water during the day.

Crazy, right?

Well she went on to say that she rea­li­zed her daugh­ter was never really fee­ling that “I gotta pee really bad” sen­sa­tion and the­re­fore her body never lear­ned which musc­les were nee­ded to “hold it”.  When that sen­sa­tion hap­pe­ned at night, her body did not know how to respond.

Something in her com­ment reso­na­ted with me.

I was super­mom with son and always made sure he was hydrated…But my daugh­ter?  Not so much.

My Plan:

Star­ting in the mor­ning I requi­red Claire to drink as much water as pos­si­ble, refi­lling her cup as many times as neces­sary.  I became vigilant.

After four o’clock, liquids were off limits with the excep­tion of a small glass of water directly after dinner.

At night­time I’d have her go to the bath­room two to three times prior to laying down, ensu­ring that she appro­pria­tely drai­ned her bladder.

I’d take her to the bath­room just before I went to sleep.

I pre­pa­red for a month long ‘battle’, so to speak, by making her bed with two water­proof mat­tress pads and two bot­tom sheets and one addi­tio­nal water­proof pad directly under her body.

Claire, true to form, began peeing her­self with regu­la­rity.  We (both Claire and I) chan­ged her sheets and paja­mas when that happened.

After two weeks, as if by some sort of miracle, Claire was dry almost every sin­gle night.

Dry.

Nightly.

Ama­zing.

Now I’m a belie­ver.  Once Claire was for­ced into the potty dance during the day, her body began recog­ni­zing the cues at night and res­pon­ded by not allo­wing her to relieve her­self all over her sheets.

Now it’s your turn.  Send me your paren­ting ques­tions and I’ll let you know what’s been effec­tive for me.

Today is my husband’s and my seventh anniversary.

A lot has hap­pe­ned in seven years.

Year one, we plan­ted an awe­some gar­den at our ren­tal condo and cele­bra­ted Christ­mas in the middle of the night to honor your crazy work schedule.

Year two, we bought a house,  a dog, and I got preg­nant all in the same week.  Good time!! 

Year three, we remo­de­led our house in one month’s time, with a 10 month old and a baby on the way AND our marriage sur­vi­ved!!  How ’bout them apples!!

Year 4, our dar­ling daugh­ter was born.  We had an 18 month old and a new born. Your work sche­dule was horren­dous.  Remem­ber that?  Ya.  Me too!  This was also the year you tes­ted for a pro­mo­tion. 

Year five, you were pro­mo­ted!! That was a HUGE deal but unfor­tu­na­tely we had to miss your pro­mo­tion cere­mony because you had the pla­gue, or Ebola, or the flu.  Wha­te­ver it was, you were down for the count. But as a pro­mo­ted man our life became much easier. For that we were grateful.

Year six was a doozy. You tore year shoul­der and were out of work and at home for seven months… our small home.  But somehow we mana­ged and thri­ved and grew clo­ser all while co-parenting with the best of them.  This was a good year!

Year seven has flown by.  I’ve gone back to school to get my Master’s degree.  But unfor­tu­na­tely, this is the last year I am able to work part time.  Life has been busy, but our hours and days off have coin­ci­ded so we’ve had a lot of time to be together.  Addi­tio­nally, we bought our first tent trai­ler, a purchase that both of us were genui­nely giddy about!

Our eyes have more smile lines, our bellies have more coo­kie lines, and our love is still going strong.

Happy anni­ver­sary baby.  It baf­fles me that you love me so much!

But you should know…I still love you more!

Before I begin and end with part three, I feel com­pe­lled to men­tion that I am actually a very happy, bles­sed, gra­te­ful per­son.  I am in no way cur­led up in the fetal posi­tion suc­king my thumb or stan­ding on a cliff ready to jump.  My last two posts see­med to have promp­ted much con­cern in the form of emails, phone calls (plu­ral), and a batch of deli­cious coo­kies deli­ve­red from my loved ones. Thank you for all your love and concern.

I tend to be an extre­mest, just ask my hus­band!  And when I wrote, “This inter­nal dia­lo­gue haunts me daily,” I may have been over exag­ge­ra­ting… just a tad bit…sorry for that. 

These posts were actually ins­pi­red by an acti­vity we did at church a while back where you had to write down your nega­tive inter­nal dia­lo­gue in hopes to change it into something positive.

I thought it would be a nice acti­vity to turn into a series of posts.

Sigh.  I was wrong.

My mom, who is like the nicest per­son in the entire world, gently sug­ges­ted that I might want to end this post on a bit of a hap­pier note.    That made me laugh!!  But she’s right.
Even though I kinda regret expo­sing my inner demons to my clo­sest family and friends and really feel like craw­ling in a hole and hiding for 6 months, I will finish what I star­ted.  Brace your­self for one more downer…but tomorrow’s post will be way bet­ter, promise!!

Part 3 of 3

Too Young and Naive.

This inter­nal dia­lo­gue haunts me, daily.

Too Young & Naive

I began teaching at twenty one.  I wore my hair in two braids, like Julia Roberts did in The Firm.  My prin­ci­pal fre­quently shook her head at me and said I loo­ked like one of my students.

When I spoke up at team mee­tings, my exci­ted, new, hope­ful ideas and beliefs were quickly dis­coun­ted.  “That’s nice, Nanette.  But here at this school, we do things differently.”

I was too young and not taken seriously.

An inter­nal dia­lo­gue I’ve repea­ted to myself each day since.

Now I’m thirty two.  My hair is big and poofy.  I have wrin­kles and love hand­les.  My vir­tually non-existent breasts actually sag.  I’ve been teaching for over ten years, and somehow still feel that I’m vie­wed as too young and naive.

But then the that begs to be asked, “Who views you this way?  Others?  Or you?”

I think it’s the latter.

And it’s going to change.

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Yeay!!  Yip­pee!!  Whoo Hoo!!  I LOVE pup­pies and but­ter­flies!!  Weee!

How was that?  Happy enough?

No?

How about an ado­ra­ble pic­ture I just took of my fan­tas­tic cho­co­late lab, Kayla!

I knew you’d love that!

Tomo­rrow is my anni­ver­sary.  And I’ve got the grea­test pic­ture of my hus­band.  One you won’t want to miss!!

Thanks for the coo­kies, phone calls, emails, and love.  You guys are the best.