HOLDING ON AND LETTING GO
HOLDING ON AND LETTING GO / POTTY TRAINING
We spent the week at Whippoorwill Campground; what a fun and challenging week. Vacation with kids is never really vacation. I’ll paraphrase one of our favorite comedians, Jim Gaffigan, vacation is just being frustrated with your kids in a different location. Not only did we face the typical challenges of vacation, too much activity, missed naps, entitled kids, too much spending, etc. We decided to also take on the challenge of potty training. We had discussed this for a while. Our son, now three and a half, had been “potty training” for the past year. The problem had been us and our lack of commitment. We knew for a while he was ready but committing to those first few days of accidents and being close to a potty at all times was overwhelming. We also both work full-time so we didn’t want to put this on our sitter. On our days off or Christmas Vacation we were reluctant to make the effort. But alas, the time had come! Our son was getting closer to four years old and the past seven times I bought a box of pull-ups for $40 I swore it would be my last. We agreed that if he was not potty trained before our vacation, we would take the leap and just get it done.
We packed his new Paw Patrol potty, courtesy of his Mom-mom, who takes delight in spoiling her youngest grandchild. We packed 20 pairs of underwear, all of which were new because the 20 pairs before were size 2T/3T and he grew out of them. We got to the campground, set up his potty, talked at length about our plan and ditched the diapers. We were genuinely surprised how well he did and how fast he picked it up. I mean he had been using the potty for a year but it seemed pretty effortless as long as we reminded him (and sometimes bribed him) to use the potty every few hours. We got through the week with very few accidents and even woke up each morning dry! Disclaimer: If you do not have children this post is probably rather strange. You have no idea how much I would not like to talk about potty training but well, here I am! At the conclusion of our trip, we had such success, we decided to have a bye-bye pull-up party. I thought it was a good idea because if we used them again out of our own laziness or left them on him at night and failed to tackle that in the morning he may digress and I would painstakingly buy my eighth box of unwanted pull-ups. We got a cake, balloons and a present and invited Mom-mom and Paw-paw and we celebrated our baby moving on.
Our trailer at Whippoorwill Campground near Ocean City, NJ
This was a successful week and I was proud of our son and I was proud of us. No one congratulates parents for the hard work they are doing through all this. In fact, the very people we give our services to, our time, our commitment, our hard work, they are usually thankless, self-absorbed little monsters. I felt like I deserved that cake more than he did. I can barely remind myself to pee these days, let alone have to consistently remind a three-year-old every two hours, and then we have to celebrate like the Phillies just won the World Series that he took a piss in the potty. If he poops- look out, parade in town. Again, something you do not realize when you are single, that one day you will be celebrating someone else crap on the pot.
As the week progressed, there was a moment when I looked at my son, riding his balance bike, shirt off and the rim of his Puppy Dog Pals underwear sticking out of his shorts that I realized we have concluded the final chapter of the baby stage. Just like that we had a little boy. It was all done, the crib, the bottles, the pacifier, the high chairs, the diapers, they were all finished. My husband and I have no plans for any more biological children and if we ever adopt we are not planning for any babies, so this is it for me. I will never feed another bottle to my child, search desperately for another pacifier, carry another car seat on my hip. I will never feed another with my body, carry another in my stomach or give birth to another (thank God for that one). My heart paused in that moment to mourn the end of this chapter. I was grateful in many ways that we were moving forward, but also sad in many ways that my baby, my littlest love, was not a baby any longer.
Arlo riding his balance bike during potty training week.
It’s true what they say, the days are long and the years are short. I feel that every day when I count down the minutes until bedtime, but then I look at their sweet, sleeping face and wonder, how did we get here? How is it that four years ago I carried this child within me? How is it that I will soon be a mother to a nine year old? There’s something about a sleeping child that melts away the days frustrations and reminds you of everything pure and sweet. We move on to the next chapter with our son, not easier, oh no, no such thing, just different with a whole new set of challenges. He’s not a baby any longer. He’ll always be my baby, he’ll always be my littlest love, but he’s not a baby – I will rejoice and mourn this at the same time. I will relish these days and grieve these days together. I will celebrate each new phase and yet carry the former days with me. I will tuck those moments in the pocket of my heart and remind myself, especially during the long days, of what will never be again.
Posted By: Fawn