On Her Terms

The Princess is essentially "day" potty trained (potty learned for the PC Club). What this means is that she is completely aware of the need to empty her bowls and bladder and can pretty much control it during the day, we have not attempted nighttime yet. But I have to admit it is on her terms!

This is a new phenomenon in our home-- the boys accomplished this MUCH later in toddler hood- after 3 1/2 for sure. With her showing keen interest and a need to please the day care/preschool where she attends, we attempted this sooner than with her brothers who really weren't interested until late 3's. This weekend we had great success! We even bought new princess undies.

Today I was doing my usual carpool circus, Magoo is off to a special summer school class, Blue Eyes is going to day camp and the Princess goes to a day care/pre-school. (All before 9:00 am)
On the way to day camp, the Princess declares that she has a tummy ache. She was home last Friday for a stomach thing that included vomiting so I called her day care director and let her know that the Princess would be staying home today, (and I knew it was unlikely that I would get much work done). But my little girl needed me, I wanted to be there for her!

Have I mentioned that my hubby, TDH is out of town until Friday? He is doing a consulting job for about 6 weeks where he leaves on Sunday mornings and returns on Friday afternoons. Call me crazy-- what was I thinking when I agreed to that! I even encouraged him to take the gig. I do work full time too. From home mostly, but it is full time.

Anyhoo...The Princess and I, we got back to the house and she preceded to request the My Little Ponies DVD- I jumped on the chance to do a little work and have her rest quietly watching one of her favorite movies -it is right up there with Barbie Nutcracker! She was not acting ill and she certainly didn't have that "look" of being ill, you know moms can always tell when their kids are sick- my kids have the tell tale dark circles and a "look" I can't really put into words. I thought rest would still be good.

I had a staff meeting/conference call at 10:00 am and I figured I could at least accomplish that much in my work day! About 10 minutes into the meeting call my darling daughter walks into my office, stands to the side of my desk, so that I can CLEARLY see her and she begins to pee! Right through those princess undies all over the back of her cute little dress, on her socks, her shoes and onto my office floor! You get the picture.

This is the child who earned m&ms just an hour earlier for going poopy in the potty... I am not above bribery to reinforce the good behavior.

So, I am still in the middle of my staff meeting, wanting to scream, "What the heck are you doing!" and instead I say in a very hushed whisper, gritting my teeth, "You will clean this up!What are you thinking? Why? "

Still in conversation, trying not to let on that I would like to give my child a big swat on the tushy (I didn't- though I wanted to, we typically do not spank), I grabbed a bath towel and some Clorox wipes and preceded to assist my daughter in the clean up- oh yea, you bet I made her clean up her mess...

I scooped her up in my arms (still on the conference call, trying to maintain composure and sound like I was paying attention to every word being said in the meeting), walked her into her bedroom and promptly put a diaper on her.

Following her nap - I actually dozed with her for a few minutes, boy did I need it- we went back to underwear and she has been fine since. Even for the car trip to pick up her brother at day camp.

All on her terms...