The Pushing Parent and Race Car Potties
Life with children can often feel like one massive series of transitions. Your bundle of joy finally makes the trek down the hall from your room to her own crib. Globs of pureed baby food are replaced with a high-chair covered in spaghetti and meatballs. Crawling becomes walking, part-time preschool gives way to entire days full of math, history, and reading. The change is constant and rapid.
As parents, we do a bang-up job of acting surprised by "how fast it's all going". "My baby! When did you get so big?!? Oh I wish time would just slow down!" But then with the same breath, we turn around and try to speed up the process to make things easier on ourselves or to feel like our kids are on-par with what's "normal". We sleep-train to eliminate that middle-of-the-night feeding. We're tired. We've got stuff to do and places to go in the morning. But there will be a time when our arms will ache for what was once the sweetest, most peaceful cuddle-moments with our footie-clad chubsters. We encourage our kiddos to "go play" during trips to the park. We want to catch up on Facebook or just zone out on a nearby bench. But it won't be long before we're no longer invited to swing or "come see" the line of ants crossing the slide. Our babies will be out of the nest and leading their own grown-up lives soon enough. Why are we so dead-set on hastening the little moments? Why do we feel the need to get to that next step so soon? Why...push?
If I have you worried that you're a "pushing parent", relax. We are all guilty...we've all been there. It's just nice to be reminded that this beautifully chaotic thing called parenthood is worth slowing down for. And if you forget to chill out, you can often count on your children to give you a not-so-subtle reminder. Does it sound like I could possibly be speaking from experience? Of course I am. Oh my kettle-friends, I am the biggest pot of all.
POTTY-TRAINING. I can hear the collective groan across the interweb. Potty-training has been one giant, disgusting reminder that I must Slow. The. Heck. Down. Barrett will be three in June and one friend after another is ditching the diapers and becoming a free agent of the porcelain throne. The sense that my son is behind or that I'm too lazy to lay down the Law of the Loo has been front and center the last several months. No one put that burden on me. I took it on and decided we needed to move on to the next phase of life. Understandably, I'd become a little fed up buying diapers and wiping my son's poop-smeared butt. It was time to pull out the tiny potty and make a move toward diaper-freedom.
Or so I thought. I began sitting Barrett on a sweet-looking race car potty first thing every morning. Day after day I displayed a cup of M&M's like a yoga pants-clad Vanna White. Week after week, my first-born locked eyes with me and screamed his wrath from the depths of his tortured soul. There was yelling, there was pleading, negotiating. My easy-going mornings went from sipping coffee and watching my kids play to wondering if today would be the day the neighbors finally called the cops. Things in my home had become bad...very bad. Sure, the kid was pooping in the potty, but at what cost? My sanity? An hour or more of his play-time down the drain? The thought that I was rushing Barrett to the next phase too soon nagged at me, but I trudged on.
One night, Barrett sat across from me at the dinner table, not eating as usual. He propped his chubby little elbows on the table, made a face that I was very familiar with, looked me square in the eyes and said, "I just pooped". Before I could reply, he looked sideways for a moment and continued, "I guess I peed, too". Over a month of potty-battles had gone by at this point. I took a deep breath, sat back in my chair, and laughed. And let me tell you, that laughter felt good. It was a physical release from the pressures I'd put on myself and my son to "catch up" to the next phase.
The day will come when the kid is actually excited to visit his old friend, race car potty. Maybe that's next month or even next year. But you know what? I refuse to rush him. I will let him stay little and enjoy even the smelly, gag-inducing rounds of diaper changes. Most people see only the gross factor, but I've got a secret. Those diaper changes allow me to steal my little buddy away during a play-date and hear about the fun he's having. Those times when I'm elbow-deep in something I recently wished away, I'm being given a quiet, wiggle-free moment to stare into the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. There are treasures in even the most unlikely of places. If we are busy pushing our kids forward in life, we might miss the little gifts that are right in front of us.
As parents, we do a bang-up job of acting surprised by "how fast it's all going". "My baby! When did you get so big?!? Oh I wish time would just slow down!" But then with the same breath, we turn around and try to speed up the process to make things easier on ourselves or to feel like our kids are on-par with what's "normal". We sleep-train to eliminate that middle-of-the-night feeding. We're tired. We've got stuff to do and places to go in the morning. But there will be a time when our arms will ache for what was once the sweetest, most peaceful cuddle-moments with our footie-clad chubsters. We encourage our kiddos to "go play" during trips to the park. We want to catch up on Facebook or just zone out on a nearby bench. But it won't be long before we're no longer invited to swing or "come see" the line of ants crossing the slide. Our babies will be out of the nest and leading their own grown-up lives soon enough. Why are we so dead-set on hastening the little moments? Why do we feel the need to get to that next step so soon? Why...push?
If I have you worried that you're a "pushing parent", relax. We are all guilty...we've all been there. It's just nice to be reminded that this beautifully chaotic thing called parenthood is worth slowing down for. And if you forget to chill out, you can often count on your children to give you a not-so-subtle reminder. Does it sound like I could possibly be speaking from experience? Of course I am. Oh my kettle-friends, I am the biggest pot of all.
Or so I thought. I began sitting Barrett on a sweet-looking race car potty first thing every morning. Day after day I displayed a cup of M&M's like a yoga pants-clad Vanna White. Week after week, my first-born locked eyes with me and screamed his wrath from the depths of his tortured soul. There was yelling, there was pleading, negotiating. My easy-going mornings went from sipping coffee and watching my kids play to wondering if today would be the day the neighbors finally called the cops. Things in my home had become bad...very bad. Sure, the kid was pooping in the potty, but at what cost? My sanity? An hour or more of his play-time down the drain? The thought that I was rushing Barrett to the next phase too soon nagged at me, but I trudged on.
One night, Barrett sat across from me at the dinner table, not eating as usual. He propped his chubby little elbows on the table, made a face that I was very familiar with, looked me square in the eyes and said, "I just pooped". Before I could reply, he looked sideways for a moment and continued, "I guess I peed, too". Over a month of potty-battles had gone by at this point. I took a deep breath, sat back in my chair, and laughed. And let me tell you, that laughter felt good. It was a physical release from the pressures I'd put on myself and my son to "catch up" to the next phase.
The day will come when the kid is actually excited to visit his old friend, race car potty. Maybe that's next month or even next year. But you know what? I refuse to rush him. I will let him stay little and enjoy even the smelly, gag-inducing rounds of diaper changes. Most people see only the gross factor, but I've got a secret. Those diaper changes allow me to steal my little buddy away during a play-date and hear about the fun he's having. Those times when I'm elbow-deep in something I recently wished away, I'm being given a quiet, wiggle-free moment to stare into the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. There are treasures in even the most unlikely of places. If we are busy pushing our kids forward in life, we might miss the little gifts that are right in front of us.
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