What Does Miss C Say?

There was a splash.  Not a large kerplunk.  Just a partial dip complete with a self-rescue.

Yes, sigh, Miss C fell into the toilet.  But when I think long and hard, I didn’t expect toilet training with her to go any other way.

Part of the challenge is her mum.  I hate this stage of childhood.  It takes too much out of me.  All the pee checks, intimate moments in public bathrooms, fights with automatic toilets, loud hand dryers, jumbo seats.  “Don’t touch anything,” are always the first three words out of my mouth when we enter a public restroom.

To be perfectly judgy: I wish other mums subscribed to that motto.  Yesterday we were at a restaurant and there were two little girls, straws in hand, making a game out of crawling in and out of the bathroom stalls like they were in an army bootcamp.  To add to the ick factor, both girls popped the straws into their mouths after digging into the bathroom grout.  No, their mum didn’t bat an eye.  I’m so NOT that mum.

Watching my mama friends as they point out trees that need watering to their gleeful sons makes me suspect toilet training boys might be easier.  With girls there’s pants and socks and shoes and, well, the whole “give back to nature” seems to fall short.

Miss Q and Miss S were bribed with chocolate chips, sticker charts, and fancy pink Pull-Ups.  They also had the opportunity to “pee like a dog” in the cover of our own backyard, but it wasn’t the same as being at a beach and watering driftwood.

They enjoyed the chocolate chips, stickers and pink diapers; but didn’t perform like trained seals for them.  In fact, never once did either of them look down at their pink diaper and declare the pattern had disappeared or they felt cold.

In the end, time and cold-turkey were the only true yardsticks for success.

So now poor Miss C’s deprived of the pink diapers and is following her sisters down the cold-turkey path.

At first she was completely happy to start using the toilet like her big sisters.  Chocolate chips were munched after a successful trip.  I wasn’t feeling excessively grouchy about the hourly trips to the toilet. Nor was I grumbly about my sparkly-in-spots hardwood floors.  Harmony had been struck.

At first…

One day Miss C decided to forgo the small seat.  She wanted to use the toilet exactly like everyone else: on the big seat, no ifs, ands, or buts…even if she looked like a hummingbird perched at the edge of the Pacific.

Then the chocolates and stickers fell.  She wanted something bigger, something memorable.  If she was going to dance like a monkey, she was going to do it in style.  “Mama, I want to watch What Does The Fox Say?  Ring-a-ding.  Ring-a-ding.”

When you’re in the throws of toilet training you grasp at any carrot; especially if it’s quirky.

It was a slippery slope.

These days, What Does The Fox Say? rivals Let It Go.  I’ve had to move the location of the sing-a-long to the living room, after the deed is done, as the iPad’s placement in the bathroom on the now passé Mr. Potty was creating tension in the sisterhood – something about not everyone could see.

I’m not wishing for life to speed up; but I am looking forward to this stage ending.  One day I’ll have an area rug under my coffee table again. I won’t have to figure out how to squeeze an oversized box of diapers into the back of a stroller. And What Does The Fox Say? will fade to a kitchy song that we nostalgically reflect upon in thirty years.  That, or we’ll resurrect it at Miss C’s wedding.  Cue the foxes and toilet holograms floating around the room as she melts with embarrassment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Finally Fort Rodd

Accidents happen.  Young and the Restless ended, the pot of tea grew cold – I microwaved the last three cups, over the evening, just so it wouldn’t go to waste.

Miss Q is, what I would consider 99% toilet trained.  The 1% left is for her random accidents.  Can’t be perfect, but it would be nice for them to happen when I wasn’t in quiet time.

Today we went to Fort Rodd Hill.  Third time’s a charm: it was open!  Hooray.

What a great place to run children.  Better still because now there are safety railings around problematic drop-offs.  (No safety railings back in the 80’s.)

Miss Q and her friends had fun exploring the artillery bunkers – though Miss Q didn’t stay for very long.  They were pretty dark, and echoey.

She enjoyed the beach and throwing rocks into the ocean.  The latter a little too much as she became deaf to my “only one more rock,” command.  If she had her way, the entire beach would be back under water.

But her favourite was the cannon they could all climb upon.  That’s the beauty of this place – interesting things to climb, from cannons to staircases.

Miss Q didn’t want to leave, though the fact she’d had an accident in her waterproof pants (sort of ironic), and her cat-napping sister, dictated we couldn’t stay the entire day.

Side note: Miss Q told me she’d gone pee in her pants because her friend had gone pee too.  What Miss Q failed to observe, is her friend was male, therefore making bathroom breaks a tad easier in the wild.  Welcome to being a girl.

All of the children, except for the ones snuggled on their mothers’ chests, appeared ready for naps after romping around the landmark for two hours.  (Appeared, in Miss Q’s case, but no Sandman for her.)

It was free today, because of maintenance on the park, but at less than $6.00 for a season’s pass, if bought before June, we’ll be back.

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