(U)phill Task

Don't worry people I ain't  no polar bear to go into hibernation. I was very hard pressed for time yesterday. The kid had fever, I had a certification exam today (I cleared it, thank you very much :D) and being Sunday there was the whole preparation for the week to be done. But I had to post something, anything. Again I cheated my way out :P Ah and one well meaning reader who did not take the quiz had the audacity to ask me of the results! So here you go - 

There was exactly 1 reader who answered. (S)he (I think I can hazard that pronoun ) reads my blog every day, because she kinda likes it (see no coercion there!) and finds the blog funny. She enjoys reading yet another detail about me (in spite of knowing me so well already). The family posts are her favourite and she does recommend this space to everyone she meets (Is'nt that chweet). Some socio politico posts would be appreciated and I come across as extremely talented (Ahem ahem).

Anyhoo apart from this 1 reader, there is I guess no one who cares a bit about Cherrie (sob sob) Since I do not have a wide clientele of readers, I am going to write about a pretty graphic and morbid topic. I was supposed to write about it yesterday. Then as I stated the time just slipped away and I was left with a one liner. So whats it going to be about today? Any mom with a toddler struggles with this aspect I guess. You guessed it potty training. Now all you happy singletons can look away and go back to whatever fun stuff you were doing. Hah thinking clearly I do not have such a wide variety of readers, so who am I kidding?

Coming back to my case, my m and mil were both very zealous about potty training. Since the young age of 6 months, there have been attempts to get the little one to 'eliminate' outside. Technically they are too young to ask for a loo and hence the term elimination. I read up all sorts of articles - lesser use of diapers, lesser pressure on mother earth to churn through all the plastic;  as a con making the young ones eliminate outside might result in them feeling pressurised. From experience I can say, kids know how to avoid pressure mighty well. They are fully qualified to give parents the royal ignore. So I tried to get her to wee and poo outside. Boy  it was messy business. Keeping an eye on her moods and moves, keeping a tab on time and taking her every hour or so, the disappointment of not hearing the sweet tinkle and the agony of wetting herself minutes later (ARGH!) Slowly the kid did start getting used to whatever mom was trying to do.  Sometimes to humour me, she would use the toilet very adeptly. Other times, I feel to smite me, she would deliberately run away and grace the carpet. I had totally gotten rid of diapers at home. Only during nights and when we stepped outside would I  use it. Daycare brought in a whole different arrangement. Since she was in one of the younger rooms, where there were kids from the age of 12 months, they were all diapered. This helped her unlearn all the good stuff her mom had taught over a year or so. (Darn!) Making her use the loo at the home was starting from scratch all over again.  I  felt as if I was repeating a year in some course :( Boo hoo.

Thankfully, in 4 months time she moved to a room with bigger kids. In the first meeting, when her key person asked  if there was anything I would want them to concentrate on I jumped and screamed POTTY TRAINING. The key person was aghast and seeing my frightening enthusiasm had to acquiesce *Mwahahahaha* She started taking real small teeny tiny itsy bitsy baby steps. She asked me to get pull ups. Now from all the well meaning journals I had read, they all agreed that pull ups are no different from diapers and they did not help in any progress. But who was I to argue with the Key  Person? So next day I got my truck load of pull ups. Allegedly the pull ups make it easier for the kids to get to the toilet and sit by themselves and come back because of the way they are structured (they do not have those Velcro tabs . Hmm  ok. Point taken. One day the KP came and told me that she had used the toilet and done a wee there. After some days, she was keen to proceed to keep the kitten without pull ups as well. We stocked up on pants and kept our fingers crossed on accidents. There are days which are accident free then there are others. Encouraged by all this, I have started keeping her off the diaper during night as well. In the span of a week, I would say my success rate has been 40%. Not good, but not too bad either.

This has some how been the most challenging aspect of the little birdie's upbringing. There were aspects like weaning, self feeding, self sleeping, separation anxiety and what not, which have settled down.  She has shown her pattern with respect to these aspects. It  has been proved that I was worrying unnecessarily. But this elusive potty training has been beating me since August 2012. I know, she wont be 13 and still in diapers. But what if?! Eieeekssss!