Potty Training

The whole reason I am writing this post is because a toddler I love is being spanked for wetting the bed at night.  You should NEVER punish or degrade your child for having "accidents."  To do so is to set your toddler up for failure.  When you punish a child for something they can't control, something they don't know how to control, what you're actually doing is inflicting some pretty serious damage on your child's self-esteem and sense of self worth.  If you're a spanking potty trainer then hear me out before you dismiss this entirely--I have proof.  Keep reading.

Pediatricians, clinical psychologists, and child psychiatrists all agree that punishing a toddler for peeing on themselves is the worst thing you could possibly do, and that punishing your kid for "accidents" may actually push their potty-training backwards and cause a delay in overall potty training success.  Don't believe me?  Ask your pediatrician, or check out The American Academy of Pediatrics Guide to Toilet Training.  Both the book and your own doctor will tell you that positive reinforcement is the way to go (both will also tell you spanking is definitely a bad idea).  

Here are some facts you should be aware of before you even begin potty training:

•  Potty training with no accidents and all day daytime dryness usually takes 6 to 12 months to achieve, and can take significantly longer depending upon the child.
• Infants and toddlers become aware of bowel movements first and therefore usually learn not to poo poo on themselves well before they master not peeing on themselves.
• Potty training can't be rushed and you have to wait until your child is ready to begin.  Here's a great website that helps you figure out if your kid is ready.
• Bed wetting, called enuresis by doctors, is perfectly normal.  Many children wet the bed and according to the American Academy of Pediatrics it is normal for a child to wet the bed up until age 7.  Children's sleep cycles differ slightly from adult sleep cycles.  Infants, toddlers, and some young children sleep more deeply than adults.  Their bodies are not physiologically designed to wake them up and make them aware they need to go potty. 

Here are a few tips and tricks to make potty training easier on you and your toddler:

• Positive reinforcement works better than scolding and punishing a child.  Try a sticker chart.  Every time your child goes pee pee in the potty let him put a sticker on the chart on the wall and praise him big time!  If that doesn't work you can also try a treat chest--every time your child gets five stickers let him pick a toy (cheap dollar tree toys work well for this) out of the treat chest.  
•  Make the potty fun.  Be silly and try to make sure your child sees the bathroom as a fun place to be.  Don't sigh and show your child that potty training is a hassle or they won't want to go in the bathroom.  Make up a potty song, let them see how you go potty, and talk to them while they're on the potty so they aren't bored.
• Try cheerios for little boys.  Put a few cheerios in the toilet and tell your little boy to sink them. It helps him learn to aim and it makes a game out of going to potty.
• Try a potty training chart.  Sometimes little ones need reminders on how to go potty by themselves.  You can find helpful charts to put in your bathroom here.

And last but not least, here are a list of resources from people much more knowledgeable than I am about potty training:

• Brazelton, TB. "A Child-Oriented Approach to Toilet Training." Pediatrics 29: 121-128, 1962.
• Potty training facts
• Stadler AC, Gorski PA, and TB Brazelton. "Toilet Training Methods, Clinical Interventions, and Recommendations," Pediatrics 103: 1359-1361, 1991.
• The Mayo Clinic on Potty Training website
• Dr Sears' Toilet Training Tactics and Tips website
• American Academy of Pediatrics search results for "potty training" page (various links and resources)
• Dr. Sears on Bed Wetting website
• US Department of Health and Human Services Guide to Bed Wedding pdf

Good luck and lots of patience!

Better

Last night's post was dramatic and sad.  I meant every word at the time.  I curled up in my bed and sobbed until I had to get up to puke.  I never do that. I never let myself do that. I'm still upset but I'm no longer defeated. Shelly, you were right.  I am strong and I can handle this.  Thanks for the reminder!

Now, I have a very serious request for my readers.  I never ask you guys for anything, but this is important.  My aunt's breast cancer came back and it's not just in her breasts.  It has moved to her lymph nodes.  You can imagine how heartbreaking and frightening this is for her, her teenage daughter, and our entire family.  I'd like to request that all of you pray and send good thoughts her way.  She could use them.  Thank you.

Breaking Point

I have been through so very much in my life.  So much.  Tragedy.  My life is soaked in tragedy and shades of bleakness and horrors beyond imagining.  My aura, if such things exist, is probably black with grief and unshed tears and all the things I will never discuss and all the things I wish could be undone.  But I just kept going.  No matter what.  I just stood up straighter and doggedly continued forward with a determination to find a better day.

Until today. 

Right this second--as I type this--I quit. 

I lay down my arms.

I surrender.

I'm done.  I'm done for. I'm done in.

I'm tired of fighting.  I'm tired of hoping. I'm tired of wanting. I'm tired of wishing. I'm tired of being tired.

I quit.

I don't want to stand up straighter. I don't want to keep moving forward.  I don't want to do anything but lay in a broken puddle upon the floor and sob until I can't breathe anymore.

That's what I feel like right now.  I have reached my breaking point.

Bliss

Bliss:  (n.) supreme happiness; utter joy or contentment

"When you follow your bliss doors will open where you would not have

thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't

be a door for anyone else." 

--Joseph Campbell

Once upon a time there was a girl who foolishly believed she knew what happiness was and how to achieve it.  She plotted a map to Happiness and set about on her journey. This girl grew into a woman and she allowed her own misconceptions and fears to steer her in all the wrong directions.  She thought she knew where she was going, but somehow her sail became furled and she failed to notice, so she was blown far off course.  This lost and wandering girl-turned-woman was me.  

I was silly enough to pin my contentment upon material goods and all the Dick and Jane trappings society seems to dictate we "need" to be happy.  I had the big, beautiful house. I had the fenced in yard. I had the husband with a good job and a good sense of humor.  I had a dog. I had running shoes. I had a huge television and radio blaring music I enjoyed. I had a porch swing and sweet smelling flowers and a seasonal flag hanging from the side of my house. I had two cars--one new. I had a college degree and a career. I had smiling pictures in frames. I had wine and rows of bookshelves brimming with dreams I'd forgotten long ago....

I had it all, and yet I had nothing. I was discontent. I was not happy. I was simply going through the motions while other people envied this existence they really had no understanding of in the first place.  I had a fake smile and a forced laugh and a misery rooted deep inside my soul.  

So one day I woke up, utterly trapped inside this Dick and Jane life I had created for myself--and I couldn't breathe.  I couldn't see myself anymore.  I lost something vital.  I lost that something that made me me.  I wanted out.  So I left it all behind.  I left all those things everyone thinks you need to be happy.  I discovered a new kind of fear, a new brand of misery.  I floundered. I flailed.  I found my footing.  

I found my feet and that I could stand on them all by myself.  I found myself living in a house that was not so big or beautiful as the one I left behind.  I found myself without a fenced in yard and a dog. I found myself without the husband and the two cars, and then I found myself without any car at all.  I found myself without a career and I found myself unpacking books and dreams in a place I never thought I'd be.  I found that I wanted to find my bliss. I haven't found it yet, but I have found some happiness and some joy along the way.  Best of all, however, best of all.....I've found me.

Home Again

People say you can never go home again.  I used to believe that.  I moved away from both my home and my hometown when I turned 18, and I never looked back.  I came back only for brief visits a few times a year.  It seemed different then--new buildings and stores cropping up here and there, roads widened to include more lanes, landmarks I loved disappeared. This was the place I grew up, but it certainly wasn't home anymore.  Nope, I thought to myself, you can never go home again.

Then I left my "home" to get a divorce.  I left the house I loved and the life I had built. I resigned from a political post that was hard earned and even harder to willingly leave.  I lost a lot.  And do you know where I went?  Home.

 I went HOME.

I moved back to the very place that at 18 I could not wait to flee.  I found the streets were the same streets, even if a few were a bit wider.  The old buildings and stores I knew so well were still there--mixed in with the new and peppered with renovations over time, but mostly still the same.  Some of the landmarks I once loved are gone, but the land they stood upon is the same land.  I know these roads. I know these places.  I know this town.  It is still remarkably the same, and you know what---there is an amazing comfort to be found in that sameness.

The people here, the people I left behind, are still here too.  They're here and those who loved me then still love me now.  That love is the same.  Those friendships are the same.  There are people here with ready smiles and open arms---happy I am back and welcoming me home. 

I found a little sign tucked away in the back corner of a tiny shop in the mountains on a recent trip.  It says, "Sometimes right back where you started from is right where you belong."  I bought it.  It's perched on the window sill above my desk.  I put it there to remind me that right where I am is the very place I need to be.  I put it there as a reminder that no matter who says "You can never go home again,"  you really can. You can always go home.  I know that's true because I did.

Forgiveness

"I forgive you / We were just a couple of kids/ trying to figure out how to live/ doing it our way/ no shame, no blame/ 'Cause the damage is done/ And I forgive you./ I forgive you/ we were busy living the dream/ Never noticed the glass ceiling falling in on us/ No shame, no blame/ 'Cause the damage is done/ And I forgive you./ I forgive you, I forgive me/ Now do I start to feel again?" 

I am moving into a space of forgiveness.

I have been angry for too long. Angry at myself for getting married when I probably shouldn't have.  Angry at my ex for somehow not being what I needed him to be.  Angry at myself for expecting him to be something he wasn't and for trying so hard to be something I wasn't.  Angry at the world for wanting me to fit into some nice, neat little box when I just don't know how to meet society's ridiculous expectations anyway.  Angry in general. 

Then I would somehow alternate to a place of despair and darkness.  I would wonder what was so wrong with me that I just couldn't love this perfectly nice man and make it work.  I would be sad that I'd somehow failed at something.  I'd be sad that my life was changing and I was losing pieces of myself here and there and everywhere. 

Then I'd be angry again.

Now I'm learning to accept these emotions as they come.  I let myself feel them without remorse and then I move forward--because that's the only way worth going right now.  I am moving into a healthy space, a good place, now.  I am moving into a space of forgiveness.  I am letting go of the anger and the sorrow and the confusion.  I am letting go of the hurt and all of the negativity.  I am embracing peace and forgiving myself for this divorce. I am forgiving M. too.  I deserve to be forgiven in return, but he'll have to get there on his own.  I can accept that too. 

I think I'm getting my groove back.  I've learned what I needed to learn from this.  I am still learning new things every day. I am finally at peace with this divorce and the major changes I've brought to my own existence by severing a relationship that needed to be ended.  I am moving back into myself--into being who I am unapologetically and without question.  I am happy to have some peace back. Forgiveness is refreshing.