Stupid Potty

I admit it. I hate potty training. I mean, it seems like a really good idea-- no more diaper changing: whee! A child who can take care of their own business seems like a true accomplishment.

That's the rub right there, really: no newly potty-trained child is really taking care of their own business. It requires you, the designated responsible party, to remind them to go, join them in the bathroom, wipe, and wash hands. Not to mention the book-reading while perched precariously on the side of the bath tub. The problem is, potty-trained is actually more high maintenance than untrained for quite some time.

Even the word "potty" sounds stupid. Yet, it's one of those fine examples of parenting vocabulary that has a way of slipping itself into my adult life. As in, "Excuse me, I am really enjoying this meeting about the resuscitation of the economy, but I need to use the potty."

So, even though I do want my children to become productive self-pottying members of society, I dread every step of the process required to get them there. Every accident is not only an inconvenience, but also a signal of parenting failure. It has nothing to do with the particular child who is actually going to the potty (or not); it has everything to do with mom. All the other moms look at you like, "Oh, well she started too soon" or "she's obviously not following-through on the program" or "she's definitely not using the Dr. Phil plan." It's all yet another opportunity to match up my own personal potty-training skills with the others and see who comes out on top.

Therefore, I will continue to hate potty-training until the line of true self-sufficiency is crossed. In an ideal world, I would wake up one day and find both children perfectly dry and ready to go in their Buzz Lightyear or Princess undies. Until that day comes, I'm a hater.

Away... and liking it

I slipped away into the KCI terminal, glancing back at my little lady in tears in the back seat of Grandma and Granddads car. And I left anyway.

As if that weren't bad enough, I enjoyed it. I had a great time in Vegas, spa-ing at the Bellagio (jealous much?), eating extremely tasty yet expensive food, sleeping in a big bed and controlling the shades by remote. Stuart left work on Thursday and we jetted away to scenic Reno (um, no) and enjoyed two days together at the Reno Air Races.

Do you know what kind of trouble exists in the great big kidless world? Well, more than I experienced, I'm sure, but I did indulge in some simple joys. Silence. Hand-holding (the grown-up type). Waking up to an alarm clock (okay, that's not too joyous). Shopping AND trying things on. Even if I didn't need them. Or think they would fit. Eating whenever we wanted.

Ah, but here comes the rub: I couldn't indulge without noticing all the little almost-two-year-old girls riding in strollers with their moms at the outlet mall. Or the boys checking out the airplanes and having shirts signed by the pilots.

The moral: You can leave town, but the ties remain.

I was totally floored by a story on Good Morning America (another of my childless pleasures) about a woman who left her family for a writing conference 7 years ago and never came back. Abandoned her husband and 6 children, leaving them penniless and the 14-year-old daughter to sacrifice her life for mommyhood. How does that happen? How can she walk away without seeing her kids faces in the streets of London, or checking out the kids clothing in a catalog? How do you take the savings, knowing your kids are left destitute?

No matter how independent I want to be, or how fun it is to be childless for a weekend, I can't imagine pushing away the shoestrings tying me to my two little bundles of fun.