You know, even after 2 kids, it never ceases to amaze me that we have to actually teach babies how to do certain things that to us come so naturally. I mean babies know how to sleep, right? But what I didn’t realize until we had Mia was that you have to teach them how to fall asleep ON THEIR OWN. Even if you aren’t a parent, I’m sure you’ve heard enough about it from your friends or family (probably with a roll of your eyes, “what, this again?”). Ditto with the whole potty training ordeal. Meanwhile, gender role play in children seem hard coded to boys and girls (generally speaking, of course) no matter what you do or don’t do, but sleep and bathroom stuff? It sounds so obvious - so much so that in moments of frustration when you’re ready to bang your head against the wall you’re just left thinking to yourself (or out loud when you’re really fed up), “just do it already! It’s not. that. hard”.

Can you tell that we’re in full-on potty training mode right now with Claudine? Which means that we have a bare butt 2 year old running around in the house, the few rugs that we have in the apartment are gone and any time we know it’s been a few hours since the last time she went, we run and shoo her off any upholstered furniture, “Nooooo, not the couch! You can’t sit on the couch”. It’s war.

Potty training requires a lot of patience, but it’s also boring as it involves lots of sitting around waiting for something to happen. Often times nothing happens, even after 30 minutes of sitting on the potty which leaves you again to wonder, “what the hell is so hard about peeing in a bucket?”. I get that these marathon potty sitting sessions are really just a ruse on Claudine’s part to satiate us into thinking that she’s trying, but meanwhile she really has no intention of ever going. It’s a false sense of progress, but we’ll take it. Besides, I’ve had some good conversations with her while on the toilet:

Claudine (staring intently at my arm): “What’s that?”
Me: “What are you talking about?”
C: “That black thing under your arm.” (pointing to my underarm)
Me (looking, trying to figure out what she’s talking about): “I don’t see anything. What are you pointing at?”
C: “That little thing. Under your arm.”
Me (realizing that she’s referring to the slightest stubble of one underarm hair - geez): “Oh, that’s hair.”
C: (leans back, face scrunched up): “ON YOUR ARM??!?!?”
Me: “Yeah, grown ups have hair under their arms. You’ll have it too when you get older.”
C: “WHAT?!?”

As Mark recently posted on his Facebook status, potty training is part guilt, bribery and labor coaching. At some point any person has to give in to their urge and one day, just a few days ago after having held it in for over 7 hours despite our efforts to bring her to the potty with much frequency, she finally went, crying and kicking with us holding her down. Tears were dried off, a lollipop was handed over, stickers put on the chart with lots of hugs and praises. In subsequent days it’s been much easier, even with lingering reluctance. Much to our surprise, she even sat down one day on her own and just went all by herself, unprompted, which was shocking. It’s been about a week. She’s getting the hang of it and hasn’t even had an accident during this time. We’re on our way. Next step? To wean her away from expecting a “special treat” every time she goes. “Hey, that’s a pretzel, that’s not a special treat”. Guess you can’t fool the 2 year old. We’ll deal with that later.