Perfection Pending

By Meredith Ethington

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In the Motherhood

Just GO Already!

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My kids lie to me on almost a daily, sometimes multiple times a day, basis about one thing.

The scene usually goes something like this:

I’m sitting at the computer, my 6 year old is on the couch down in the basement with me playing a game. All of a sudden I hear the couch rocking. I look over and she is throwing herself against the back of the couch over and over. No, she is not possessed. She simply has to pee. “Avery, do you need to go potty?” I ask knowing that it has been a while. “No.” she says. “Avery, why are you rocking like that then? I know you need to go”. “I don’t! I promise! It’s just fun to do this.” Really? I think to myself? It’s fun to throw your body over and over again at the couch while you are trying to simultaneously do something else too? At this point, she is looking at me like, “Please don’t make me!” I let it go this time.

Five minutes later like lightning, she flies off the couch running and yelling back to me as she flies out of the room, “I need to go potty!” Hmm. I thought so.

Or there is Kyle. Who dances, crosses his legs, or flits around like a hummingbird with non-stop movement. He can’t sit still when he needs to go. I guess if he keeps moving, he is OK. At some point I get sick of the crazy jittery-ness of his non-stop moving body, and I tell him to go. “NOOOOOO!!!!” is always the response. I never hear, “OK!” NEVER.

One day, I call my Mom exasperated.

“Is this normal? Did we do that after we got potty trained?”

She replied, “No! Once you guys were potty trained, I just let you guys worry about when you needed to go”.

Doubting this, I asked, “Did we ever have accidents?”

“I don’t think so. At least I don’t remember a lot of accidents”, she said.

Still wanting validation, but not getting any, “So, it’s weird that my kids are so opposed to going potty?”

“Well, I don’t remember you guys ever doing that! You just went when you needed to go, and I never even gave it a second thought” she replied.

Sigh. My guess tells me that this is normal and my mother has just forgotten. Or scenario #2, there is something wrong about the way I potty trained them? Or, scenario #3, they are just weird. But, I like to think that it is just that my Mom has forgotten, which means that in another 30 years, I will have forgotten this too. Except, I have the blog. So, not likely. But at least my immediate memory probably won’t remember. I like to think that my Senior years will be all about just remembering the good and the precious stuff.

My kids would do ANYTHING to avoid using the bathroom. It’s like I am asking them to do something horrific act like eat vegetables, or clean up their room. There is flailing, screaming, crying, begging not to do it. Then, when they finally do, things are moving so fast that they are lucky it even makes it into the potty. And, many times, Kyle doesn’t.

It drives me crazy.

I’m curious what you do for two fully potty trained kids to start listening to their bodies better and go when they need to go!

The dancing and flailing and freakishly possessed looking behavior has got to stop.


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Comments

  1. Amber Perea says

    April 3, 2013 at 4:17 pm

    Accidents make for hard lessons learned. Let ’em suffer through an accident or 5 and hope they learn?

    Ps- Don’t listen to me…I can’t even potty train my own and I’m over here giving advice…lol. 🙂

    Reply
  2. donofalltrades says

    April 3, 2013 at 5:28 pm

    A lot of kids wait until the very last moment, that’s fairly normal. I agree with Amber though, let them piss themselves, go semi-pscyho on them, and they’ll learn. My two who are potty trained have never done it. In fact, with Cool, it’s a frustrating number of times he ask to go…like at every single meal without fail!! Lol. Kids, what can you do!?

    Reply
  3. boringyear says

    April 3, 2013 at 9:08 pm

    My husband still gets annoyed when he has to interrupt what he’s doing to go to the toilet. So I’d say its totally normal!

    Reply
  4. Rayna Drago says

    April 4, 2013 at 7:47 am

    They aren’t weird…Mason does the same. I ask him over and over and he says he doesn’t have to go and then a second later he is running into the bathroom. He has his dance he does. I don’t get it either…what is the big deal to go to the bathroom??!!! Common scream in my house as your title of the blog…Just GO already!!!

    Reply
  5. Alicia says

    April 4, 2013 at 10:20 am

    Yup. Normal. Sounds exactly like my 3 1/2 year old.

    Also – your conversation with your mom sounds AWFULLY familiar. My mom doesn’t ever remember the bad stuff. Her part of our conversations seem to sound like this…

    “I just don’t remember you having trouble falling asleep, you just went to sleep when you were tired, are you sure that’s normal? Do you think he needs medication?”

    “I don’t remember breastfeeding being so hard at the beginning…”

    “Are you sure it’s normal to not be sure if you’re letting down? I think you know if you do, I remember my milk shooting across the room”

    “I don’t think any of you kids had trouble potty training. You just did it. It’s so weird that he doesn’t want to go to the bathroom in public places.”

    Thanks a lot for the support mom. 😉 Grandmas just don’t seem to remember the difficulties of raising small children, like they’re too far removed or something.

    Reply

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Welcome! I’m Meredith.

Mom. Writer. Diet Coke connoisseur. Born and raised Texan. Lover of real talk and laughter with a hint of sarcasm mixed in.

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