WHO'S TRAINING WHO?

It was a brisk Saturday in March of 2013 as my daughter and I were getting ready to snuggle up and watch Finding Nemo, for like the GA-zillionth time. Oh, and I’m not complaining., I absolutely adore the movie. I mean, I WILL say that I was shocked when Nemo’s Mommy and sibling eggs were violently murdered by the barracuda in the opening scene. I was STUNNED and instantly regretted letting my then 18 month old baby watch the movie. Once I recovered from the shock, I found myself weeping for poor Nemo and his Daddy Clownfish. I checked in with my baby girl and she was just fascinated by the movie and didn’t seem to understand that Coral was just devoured. So we continued to watch and then watch it again, and again, and again. Gleefully singing along with Ellen to “just keep swimming”.

Sidebar - isn’t it the weirdest thing how many times a toddler can re-watch a movie over and over and over? It was so strange for me to discover that my baby wanted to watch the same movie again, and again, and again. Thank goddess for Disney, Dreamworks and Pixar, right? How brilliant to sneak in so many jokes for the adults in your children’s movies. Thank you!

So, back to my story, I just changed my two and 1/2 year old daughter’s diaper and grabbed her favorite stuffy’s - Annie and Boy. They were little stuffed Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. For some reason when I read the story to my daughter, she didn’t seem to pick up on Andy’s name, she insisted on calling him Boy. She called them Annie and Boy. When I would correct her and explain that Boy’s name is actually Andy, she would get very upset and say No! He Boy! So they were Annie and Boy and they went absolutely EVERYWHERE with my daughter. She would buckle them up in her car seat with her. One on either side of her. She would set them up on little stools on the table at meal time, and they had their own little pillow for a bed that we would set up at the head of her crib whenever she would go down for a nap or to sleep for the night. So naturally as we made our way to the sofa to watch Nemo, we brought Annie and Boy. As we sat down, my daughter turned to me and said: “Me use potty” I was like what? You need to use the potty? She said, “No more diaper. No more.” Wait, what? It’s time for her to start using the potty? Already? I had no idea. We never even talked about this. I was so busy working and juggling the day to day that I never even thought about potty training. I mean aren’t I supposed to coax her into this? Aren’t we supposed to go through a period where I bribe her with candy to use the potty? And then get Mommy shamed for bribing my baby with candy. I guess we’re going to skip that part.

I asked if she had to use the potty right then and she said “yes”. Honestly I was kind of thinking, I’d like to get the movie started, can’t you just pee in your diaper? But I had a feeling that this was a breakthrough moment, so I took her to the bathroom. Oh no, we didn’t even have a little potty to put on the toilet. If I put her on the toilet she would fall right in. I sat her on the edge and held onto her and she peed. Just like that. After telling her how proud I was of her, I told her that while she was prepared to use the potty, Mommy wasn’t quite prepared for it and I needed to buy a small potty for her. So she would need to wear diapers until the baby potty was delivered to us. Several days later we got our delivery from Diapers.com and she immediately started using the little potty. I made her wear diapers at night just in case she had an accident. About 6 months later she suddenly refused to wear the diaper at night. I put several towels down on top of her sheets just in case she had an accident and kept my fingers crossed. She never had an accident and never wore a diaper again. This was just the beginning of baby teaching Mommy how to raise a child. This was my first glimpse into Raising Mommy.