Really Mad Momma

Mad =

Disorder of the mind; Insane

Frantic; Extreme excitement,confusion, or agitation

Extreme infatuation or enthusiasm

Foolish; Lacking reason

Out of patience; Vexed

A frequent side-effect of motherhood

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Mom War Stories: The Agony of the Post-Vacation Blues

June 16th, 2009

Ahhh…vacation. You long for it all year. You plan for it months in advance. You start a diet; buy new clothes; get a manicure and pedicure; whiten your teeth; get your hair done; and make lots and lots of lists. As it gets close, you nearly burst with excitement. All of the extra work that you need to do before you go on vacation doesn’t even faze you. You are going on vacation after all.

And vacation is wonderful. You relax and unwind. You read, daydream, and sleep late. You do not work; pay bills; do chores; or taxi your kids around town. You only do things you want to do - sightsee, bask in the sun, play, eat, hike, convene with nature. Vacation is blissful.

And then it’s over. And back to reality.

You wander about brokenly on your first day back from vacation, thinking wistfully of sunsets, Piña Coladas, or other simple vacation joys. You spend the day slogging through the 600 email messages you received while on vacation, and making a half-hearted attempt to glance at the half-foot of documents in your in-box. Your co-workers respectfully leave you alone on your first day back in the office.

This reticence is gone by the second day and you are fair game to your co-workers. Your calendar has magically filled up with meetings, presentations, and looming deadlines. You know that you need to focus now, but the fog of vacation still envelopes you and very little gets done.

You reluctantly force yourself into productivity by your third day. As a coping mechanism, you start planning future vacations. Planning vacations becomes a compulsion, even as you regain your work focus and move full speed ahead. By the end of the next week, you have planned vacations for the rest of your life.

Eventually, vacation becomes a memory and you become re-accustomed to the hectic pace of your life. You get tired of planning future vacations and get on with life.

It’s a lot of work to get ready for vacation and a hell of an adjustment when you come back. Still, it’s all worth it. In a world where responsibility never goes away, especially for moms, a vacation is a once a year respite from it all. In a time when we are tethered to our technology - our cell phones, laptops, and blackberries, vacation forces us to turn off our devices and look at the scenery instead.

There are hectic vacations and relaxing vacations; idyllic vacations and sporty vacations; cheap vacations and expensive ones. They are all good, as long as it suits you, your family, and your budget. And in these times of economic difficulties, affordable vacations are more chic than ever. (Think about national parks, state parks, regional cities/attractions, or exploring your own town as a tourist.)

Everyone needs a vacation - a time to recharge, reconnect with your partner or family, and turn off the electronics.

Enjoy the summer and take a vacation!

Mom War Stories: Fat, Flab, and Bathing Suit Season

April 25th, 2009

Ah, Spring…the joy of new life, new beginnings, and the return of warm weather. It’s a time of hope and anticipation. Oh, and it’s also the start of the worrisome “what will I look like in a bathing suit” season. There’s a month and a half until Memorial Day and the start of summer…plenty of time to anguish about the thought of cramming your body into a swim suit.

The bathing suit worries start early for me. We take our vacation in the Spring…it’s cheaper, less crowded, and our daughter’s school is fine with it. The downside (and it’s a big one) is that I have to appear in public places in a swim suit in April. And frankly, I am not ready.

I started taking appropriate action several months ago…plenty of time to make a serious dent in the body blubber. Since then, I have lost a whopping three pounds. I’m grateful for any type of weight loss, don’t get me wrong, but I was hoping for 15 to 20 pounds…not three. Unfortunately, that won’t make any appreciable difference on my bathing suit appearance.

I finally forced myself to try on my swimsuit and wasn’t particularly pleased with the results. My daughter, however, (who has to know everything I’m doing) immediately repudiated the notion that my figure was at all deficient. “You are NOT big, Mommy! You’re skinny!,” she insisted. “You have a little tummy.”

That immediately improved my mood. I understand that a five-year old is not a judge of such things, especially a five year old who is strongly biased in my favor, but still it’s nice that my daughter thinks I look great. For some reason, it boosted my confidence. I decided to see myself through her eyes (even if they are rose-covered) and enjoy myself in swimwear.

After all, moms don’t have the option of avoiding swimsuits in the summer. The act of having children means you will be spending your summer days in the water…whether you like how you look in a swimsuit or not. Better to feel good about yourself while you’re doing it. `

Swimsuits were not always this stressful for women. Back in the days when chubby chicks ruled, the swimwear covered up all of your trouble spots. Of course, it was difficult to actually swim in these costumes, but at least you didn’t feel fat.

Alas, we’re not going back to the swim muumuu anytime soon…so I guess I have to continue efforts to slim down for summer once I am back from my vacation. Maybe I’ll lose more than three pounds this time.

Hot Topics, Mom War Stories, Insane Weight Issues

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Holiday Traditions: Making It Up as You Go

April 14th, 2009

Christmas and Easter are two of the weirdest days of the year for parents, as well as two of the most fun. Both days are Christian holidays on which parents give their kids presents and goodies, but bestow the credit on mythical creatures whose whole existence revolves around giving gifts to children.

I’m not sure what that indicates about Christian parents (of which I am one), but I do think it is great for kids. There’s something magical about a world in which an oversized bunny brings kids Easter baskets filled with goodies or a fat man in a red suit delivers presents to kids around the world in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer.

It’s fun to watch their innocent enjoyment of it all. But as a parent, I have found it challenging to explain all of the inevitable questions that our daughter has and the inconsistencies that emerge.

In years past, the Easter Bunny was waiting to get into our home while we were at church and my husband and daughter had to drop me off while I let him come inside. We went to the early church service and didn’t have time to engage in Easter Egg hunts before we had to leave. If my daughter had spied an egg or a basket beforehand, we would have been in danger of arriving late to church. So, my husband dropped me off so that I could “let the Easter Bunny inside” and then I madly ran about hiding eggs and baskets.

I never liked doing this…we only did it because we were afraid the late service at church would be too crowded for us to get a decent seat. It just didn’t sound right that the Easter Bunny would be calling me on the phone and hanging out waiting for me…even to my little girl.

This year we went to the late service at church and did the Easter Egg hunt first. I told my daughter that the Easter Bunny would not come if she was not in her bed. Otherwise, she was likely to wake up before I had a chance to hide the eggs and baskets.

She did ask me why the Easter Bunny came early this year, rather than late as he has in the past. I explained to her that the Easter Bunny hides eggs all morning and all day and visits a house depending on what works best for that family. He came to our house late when we went to the early service at church and early this year since we went to the late service.

This is the kind of stuff my husband and I make up all the time…it’s one of those things you don’t realize you’ll do until you have a child. You find yourself improvising all sorts of stories for your kids, just hoping it will be believed. To my surprise, it usually is.

My daughter asked me this year how the Easter Bunny knew she had pierced ears and wanted Polly Pocket Shimmer and Splash. I told her the Easter Bunny knew all about her…and it was nice that I was being absolutely truthful.

Mom Holidays

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Easter: The New Mini-Christmas

April 9th, 2009

When I was a kid, we woke up on Easter morning to a basket magically filled with candy. Later, we hunted for Easter eggs…the hard-boiled and dyed variety. Now, kids hunt for plastic Easter eggs with goodies hidden inside and get multiple Easter baskets filled with all sorts of things besides candy.

This year, my daughter will be getting a Polly Pocket Shimmer & Splash Adventure Park, the Polly Pocket Friend and Assorted Pets (to go with the water park), a High School Musical 2 DVD, four sets of earrings (we recently had her ears pierced), an iCarly diary with plume pen, lip smackers gloss, a bubble machine, a balloon pump and assorted balloons, High School Musical pom poms, books, a stuffed animal, and ice cream lip gloss. Oh, and candy too.

Easter has become a mini-Christmas…a relatively modest affair in comparison to the gift giving orgy of Christmas, but so much more than when I was a kid. And I am not alone in this. The shelves have been restocked, toy commercials are running non-stop, and parents are venturing out to buy new gifts for their offspring. After all, it has been three whole months since Christmas…kids need something to tide them over until next December.

Christmas largesse was well-established before my generation of parents had kids. We may have raised the bar on quantity, but our parents were just as guilty of Christmas gift excess as we are. I well remember my mother’s fear that she hadn’t gotten us enough (resulting in more gifts), then her fear that she had gotten one more than another (resulting in several more rounds of gifts in an difficult attempt to evenly balance presents across kids)…resulting in a glorious amount of riches on Christmas morning.

The Easter phenomenon is completely our responsibility, however. It’s a long way from the candy of our parent’s generation to the dozen gifts or more we are giving our kids. And I have very much bought into the Easter thing.

It started with the best of intentions. My sweet tooth is a big weakness for me…a temptation that I don’t want to pass along to my daughter. When she was little, I put toys and playthings in her basket instead of candy. It seemed like a healthier choice and the stores were filled with these items at Easter time.

When she was three, I put a little candy in her basket and a little more last year, but thankfully, she hasn’t developed the sweet tooth that I had feared. She only eats a little of the candy she receives. (I still have bags of Halloween and Valentine’s candy in a cabinet…my husband and I having long ago eaten all the good pieces.)

Although she’s not into candy, my daughter does remember the toys and goodies she received from the Easter Bunny in the past and is looking forward to the gifts she will get this year. How can I disappoint her? I instituted a precedent years ago without thinking through the consequences.

The truth is that parents like buying presents for their kids. It’s hard for us not to spoil them a little. I suppose the three months since Christmas does feel like a long time to kids. And Easter expenditures are much more reasonable than Christmas. Plus, you don’t have to wrap a zillion presents, just hide some plastic eggs and an Easter basket or two.

I did try to be more careful with my Easter purchases this year. In years past, I casually spent money on stupid Easter impulse items that are now discarded or languish in the bottom of my daughter’s toy box. At $5.99, $7.99 or $9.99, these things added up, but didn’t provide much value. I spent about the same amount this year as last, but made more meaningful choices.

Mom Holidays, Hot Topics

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Mom War Stories: When Life Is a Game

March 30th, 2009

It’s 7:30 in the morning and my daughter darts into the shower for a quick game of hide and seek. At 8:10, she’s hiding in my closet, calling out to me…”Mommy, where am I?” We walk out the door at 8:40 and our path from the door to the end of the driveway is filled with a litany of jokes, games, and playacting.

She carries a stuffed animal with her and throws it as we go out the door, which we then have to race to retrieve. She always wins the race, but I usually make it look good. Before we race for the toy, however, we have to jump over some red brick because of the “crocodiles” lurking there. (”Don’t step on the red…there’s crocodiles in the red.”) She then invites me to try to wrestle the toy out of her hands; jumps over the landing in our garage; and races to the car. She’s not finished though. She hides again once she gets into the car…multiple times if I let her. She giggles and chatters throughout this process, and seems to be having the time of her life.

I love that she is such a happy child, but it is just too much playtime for a busy morning. Sometimes, I tell her that in my stern voice, especially when we are running late…which happens all too often. (I once told her that life wasn’t all fun and games…what a killjoy I’ve become!)

Then I feel bad for trying to squash her joy. I only wish I could feel half of her joie de vivre at the start of my day.

Not that games and playtime are strictly a morning affair. She is always ready to play hide and seek with us (a game that both my husband and I would prefer to play less often). She also delights in playing practical jokes on us or “tricking” us as she calls it. My husband couldn’t find a new package of razors that he had left on the bathroom counter, only to find them much later in the shower, where our daughter had hidden them hours before (and then forgotten).

Like a lot of kids, anything silly strongly appeals to her, but for her, it’s 24/7. She plays games before dinner, at dinner, after dinner, before bath time, after bath time, and even when I am brushing her teeth. She hides from us when we run her bathwater. She runs away after her bath, still wet and wrapped in her towel, to hide from us. She hides from us when we turn our back on her to put toothpaste on her toothbrush. She hides under the table and behind chairs. We always pretend that we don’t see her, but usually locate her quite easily.

She does something silly with one of us and then immediately runs to the other parent to share this amusing feat. Or she does something hilarious in the bathtub and insists that the other parent come see. She loves jumping out at us and shouting “BOO” very loudly…almost as much as she likes to hide. She expects to startle us when she does this and is very disappointed if we don’t act accordingly. (”Did I scare you? Did I,” she asks eagerly.)

Sometimes, this makes me as crabby as her morning game routine. It’s not unusual for our getting-ready-for-bed routine to be interrupted a dozen times with her hiding and jokes. I’ve learned to hold onto her during these times, or yell at her (which usually stops the hiding, although not always).

Although I delight in her sense of humor, as does my husband (from whom she probably inherited this aspect of her personality), but it is often extremely tiring. I know she will not be a little girl forever, however, and that I should enjoy her as she is now. When she’s sixteen, I’m sure she will not be streaking naked down the hall to hide from me. And at that time, I might wistfully think about the silly little girl who delighted in playing tricks on her mom and dad.

Enjoy the wonder of your children. It’s one of the joys of parenthood to watch your child’s innocent love of life. And I hope and pray that she is as happy in the years to come as she is now.

Children at Play, Mom War Stories, Mom Work & Family

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That Wonderfully Worn Mommy Look

March 19th, 2009

For years I watched a phenomenon happen to my friends and swore it wouldn’t happen to me. As they had kids, they started looking less young, less fashion forward and more like…well, like moms. The change would happen quickly. One year, they would be perky and cutely dressed and the next year, they would be sporting mom-wear, mom hair, with everything about them screaming “mother.”

The warm-ups, the sweatpants, the hair pulled back in a ponytail…that’s a mom look we all know and love. Then there’s the practical short hair, which is not to be confused with the perky short hair. If you are a mom and have short hair, there is a good chance that your hair screams “mom”…no matter how perky you think it is. Or how about the matching bottom/top sets, Capri’s or shorts with a matching top? My personal favorite is the Skirtini, the bathing suit of choice for mothers nationwide. (For the uninitiated, the Skirtini is swim skirt…usually with “tummy control,” along with a swim tank top. Look around at the pool this summer, many of the moms will be wearing the Skirtini or the newer Shortini.)

It’s not just style and clothes of course. The sleepless nights, stress, and the sheer work of being a mother takes a toll on you. Lines start to appear under your eyes or on your forehead and gray hairs start popping out of your head. And just when your figure most needs frequent attendance at the gym, you have the least amount of time to work out and exercise. As your child gets older, parenting becomes less stressful..and less damaging to your appearance. But the initial damage has been done.

There are exceptions of course…motherhood doesn’t have the same impact on everyone. For one of my friends, motherhood just agreed with her. She glowed with health and happiness and had one of those fabulous nursing figures to boot (big in the bosom, small everywhere else). She might have been wearing mom clothes, but you just wouldn’t have noticed. She’s got that mom look going now, however. You can’t escape it forever. Another one of my friends is so instinctually fashionable that it would be impossible for her not to wear cute and trendy clothes.

And then there are the rest of us.

I used to be a tall, svelte, and fashionable. Now…well, I’m still tall. My fashion goals are pretty simple these days - to be clean and unobjectionable. I get myself and my daughter ready in the morning and it’s hectic, with no time for primping. I wash; put on make-up; and search for clothes and accessories that sort of match. Sure, I would love to look striking (or at least not drab), but that would require getting up much earlier (as well as losing twenty pounds). Between sleep and style, I choose the sleep.

I do look better now than I did when my daughter was younger. In those days, there were many times when I went to work with wet hair pulled back in a pony tail and not a stitch of make-up on my face. And yes, there were times when I showed up with spit up on my top. I feel lucky that my biggest fashion faux pas now is sporting non-descript, ho-hum clothes. Who knows…in another ten years, maybe I’ll be svelte and fashionable again.

Right now, I just don’t have the time to fiddle with my appearance the way I did before motherhood. Weekly manicures are too time consuming. I don’t exercise as much as I should or get nearly enough sleep. I don’t thumb through fashion magazines anymore or experiment with beauty products. That’s just not relevant to my life now.

And so what if I look like a mom? Yes, I wear sweats and pull my hair back in a ponytail. I own a Skirtini bathing suit and am considering purchasing a Shortini one this year. Those matching sets are starting to look cute to me. After all, I am a mom and it’s okay to look like it.

Moms Aging, General Mom Madness, Uncategorized

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More Dismal Standards on Child Safety

March 10th, 2009

I recently read that infant safety seats had far different results when they were crash tested in cars than when they are tested the way the National Highway Transportation Agency normally does. You see, infant safety seats are required to pass a test where they are attached to a sled and then crashed at 30 MPH.

This makes perfect sense if we spent a lot of time sledding with our babies, but is not particularly comforting to those of us who travel with our kids in a car.

It turns out that a whole lot of the car seats that passed the sled test (31 in fact) failed when crashed in a car at 35 miles per hour. I’m surprised it wasn’t more. The best way to predict performance in a car crash…is to test it in an actual car crash. Moreover, as the Tribune article points out, this would also allow parents to select a car seat that works well in their vehicle.

I’m not sure why infant/child car seats were ever tested via the sled method anyway and not in cars. The only thought that comes to mind is that someone was trying to save money. I don’t see why car seats couldn’t be tested at the same time that cars are being tested, however. In any case, child safety should never be sacrificed for money.

I read a lot of vague unhelpful reviews when I was first in the market for a car seat and finally settled on a seat with a well-known name and a higher price tag (hoping that was a proxy for quality). It was a weak method of making an important purchase - I know, but I had few options. I would have loved some actual test results that indicated how the seats performed in different cars and at different speeds. (Testing only at 30 or 35 MPH doesn’t make much sense, especially on a sled. Some of us do drive on highways with our kids in the car.)

Thankfully, we never had an accident and I didn’t have to find out how our infant car seats performed in a crash. It leaves me fuming, however, to have another instance where I thought my baby was being protected…only to discover later that it was a mirage. From lead in infant/children’s toys, BPA in baby bottles, traces of melamine in baby formula, and now poorly performing car seats, there were a lot of unexpected holes on infant safety when my daughter was a baby. I worry now that I unknowingly exposed her to lead, BPA, and melamine. I feel so guilty that I didn’t anticipate this.

Unfortunately—with the track record of American industry and regulators, I’m sure there will be other things to make me worry, and feel guilty about, after the fact.

Related Links
When Car-Seat Safety, Commerce Collide -Chicago Tribune, Patricia Callahan
Many More Toys Tainted with Lead -Chicago Tribune, Ted Gregory and Sam Roe
For Parents, Bottle Safety Still Unclear -The Washington Post, Renae Merle and Ylan Q. Mui
No BPA for Baby Bottles in U.S. -The Washington Post, Lyndsey Layton
FDA Finds More Traces of Melamine in Formula -CNN, Elizabeth Cohen

Safety Issues, Hot Topics

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Mom War Stories: Loving Sponge Bob

March 1st, 2009

I am a mom…therefore, I know children’s television. It started with Baby Einstein, moved briefly to Elmo, shifted to the Disney Princesses and Dora the Explorer (where it stayed for a long time). Now, it’s Sponge Bob.

My baby’s first exposure to television was with the Baby Einstein DVD’s. We had been given Baby Mozart as a gift and I watched it to see what it was all about. It seemed rather silly to me…colorful toys moving gently across the screen, with Mozart’s music in the background. I didn’t expect the baby to show much interest in it and thought the whole Baby Einstein thing had been overhyped.

I was wrong. I put on the Baby Mozart DVD when my baby was about seven months old, hoping to distract her when her father and a friend were hanging shelving in her room. To my surprise, she was riveted, completely mesmerized by it. I don’t know why…I guess you have to be a baby to understand.

In any case, I quickly learned that Baby Einstein DVD’s meant that I could get some free time. I used them to keep her occupied in the mornings when I was getting ready for work. As she got older, the DVD’s became more educational, teaching her about the world, animals, and different parts of her body. I loved them.

From Baby Einstein, we experimented a little with Elmo. My daughter didn’t dislike Elmo…she just wasn’t that into him. Gender identity played a role. Elmo is a boy and there weren’t any compelling female muppets on Sesame Street at the time (Zoe was the only major one). I was very disappointed to find Sesame Street so boy-focused, although they did introduce Abby Cadabby not long after she had lost interest in it.

My daughter discovered Dora the Explorer around the same time she started watching the Disney Princess DVD’s and both remained favorites of hers for a long time. Of the Disney Princess DVD’s, Cinderella was the one she liked the best (probably because of the mice and other animals) and she watched it so many times that I can nearly recite it word for word. She didn’t watch the other DVD’s as frequently as Cinderella, but watched them often enough for me to know the stories inside and out. (I too was a little princess once and don’t mind all of the interest in the Disney Princesses.)

It was Dora that really captured my daughter’s imagination, however. She watched it every morning while I got ready for work and heaven forbid if it wasn’t on at its normal time. There was always a lot of pouting and protesting if Dora wasn’t on…as if it was my decision to move things around. Thanks a lot Nickelodeon! Diego was often moved into Dora’s spot to gain exposure, but my girly girl said Diego was a “boy’s show” and watched it with reluctance. (She’s actually learned quite a lot about animals from watching Diego though.)

Now there’s SpongeBob. My daughter watches it religiously; talks about it when she’s not watching it; and even dreams about it sometimes. And I have to admit that it’s funny. It’s one of those shows that appeal to both kids and adults, which is a good thing since we watch a lot of it in our house. I even know all of the lyrics to the theme song. (”Ohhh, who lives in a pineapple under the sea—SpongeBob SquarePants—Absorbent and yellow and porous is he—-SpongeBob SquarePants—If nautical nonsense be something you wish—SpongeBob Square Pants—Then drop on the deck and flop like a fish—SpongeBob SquarePants, SpongeBob SquarePants, SpongeBob SquarePants.”)

And SpongeBob manages to be both innocent and worldly at the same time. There’s no need to monitor it for inappropriateness and for the most part, the show celebrates friendship, kindness, simplicity, and hard work, while cleverly parodying our culture. “Oh Sweet Neptune!”

There is one big downside to SpongeBob and that is all of the advertising they run on the show. This year at Christmas, I had a lot of requests for toys that were advertised on SpongeBob, most of which I did not want my child to have. I finally had to explain the purpose of advertising to her. Now after a commercial runs, she helpfully informs me that “they just want you to buy that thing.”

The advertisements that really had an impact on my daughter were the ones that Nickelodeon runs for its own shows, like iCarly. My daughter has become a fan of iCarly and I’m not sure I like it. The best friend character in the show (Sam) is not only a derelict, she’s also a terrible friend and an all-around dreadful girl…with almost no redeeming qualities. In reality, no one would want to be around this girl, let alone be friends with her. I’m trying to steer my girl to the squeaky clean Disney channels instead (which hopefully has better sense than to make the best friend a juvenile delinquent). In the meantime, I have discussed the poor choices that this character makes with my daughter and how poor of a friend she is. Or increasingly, I suggest something else for us to do when this show comes on and simply turn off the television.

It is a thin line that we walk with television and our kids. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children watch less than two hours of quality programming a day and that children under age two watch no television at all. I disagree about the television prohibition for kids under two. Television can be very enriching, as well as entertaining for kids. It shouldn’t be used as a baby sitter of course and shouldn’t take the place of interactive play or books. It is its own separate experience, with its own joys and benefits. I grew up watching television, loved it

I do agree with the AAP on setting limits on television viewing. That doesn’t mean I always comply with it, but two hours per day is a reasonable limit, especially on a weekday. It’s a lot harder to enforce a two-hour limit on the weekend though and I don’t really try. I think it’s important to monitor content, however, and watch the shows with your kids…at least occasionally. One of the things I like about television is how quickly and completely it can convey an image or idea. You want to make sure it’s an image that is appropriate for your child.

Related Links
Parenting Q&A: TV and Your Family -American Academy of Pediatrics
TV for Tots: Pros & Cons -WebMD

Children at Play, Hot Topics, Mom War Stories

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A Lazy Mom’s Guide to Easy Potty Training

February 2nd, 2009

I don’t want to brag, but potty training my toddler was a breeze for me. It involved an easy two step process: 1) Stumble onto a great Montessori pre-school and daycare; 2) Let them potty train my child.

It involved minimal effort on my part and my child was potty trained at 22 months. (Tips from watching them potty train my child are below.)

I didn’t set out to be such a slaggard of a mom. And I expect that my daughter’s toddler room teachers thought that I was potty training her at home also. I followed a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. They didn’t ask and I was smart enough not to volunteer any information.

The teachers started working on potty training with my daughter when she was 16 months old. At 18 months, one of her teachers told me she was ready for formal potty training, but needed to switch to underwear to really “get” it. I frankly thought she was nuts and resisted doing any such thing. At 22 months, however, all of the other kids in my daughter’s class were switching to underwear and I felt compelled to do the same (peer pressure works for moms too).

I planned on starting the process at home on a weekend. I solicited advice from family and friends, bought lots of underwear, and invested in a potty training Elmo doll and potty. On the advice of my niece, I made a calendar to record her success with colored star stickers.

We started on a Saturday morning, but had her back in diapers by Sunday morning. It was hit and miss and I got tired of cleaning up. I gave up after she had an accident in her high chair, not five minutes after she had sat on her potty without going. (It’s very difficult to clean up an accident in a high chair.) My toddler didn’t seem to get the whole thing and I really didn’t think she was ready.

We had her in underwear when I took her to school on Monday, however. I was skeptical, but more than willing to let her teachers try their hand at it. We put a diaper on her as soon as she got home.

She was potty-trained in two weeks. The first week, there was three or four plastic baggies of soiled clothing at the end of the day, although every day her teachers told me how good she was doing. (”Yeah, right,” I thought.) By the second week, there were only one or two plastic bags of soiled clothes at the start of the week and none by the end of the week. That was it…she was potty trained, barring an occasional accident.

I was thrilled. Other than a difficult day and a half, potty training was painless for me. I took off her diaper in the morning, put undies on her, and took her to school. My husband picked her up in the late afternoon, took her home, and put her back in diapers. Her teachers did the rest. They are potty-training geniuses.

If Your Child is in Daycare
If your child is in a daycare program and they don’t provide significant help with potty-training, consider a Montessori school instead. It is one of the core Montessori principles that young children are capable of and thrive on independence, and practical life skills are strongly emphasized, including potty training. Montessori schools tend to be in the same price range as other full-time daycare programs.

If your child is at a home-based daycare, ask if the caregiver is willing to help with the process. There are often a mix of ages at home-based daycare and that might make it difficult for the caregiver to give potty-training the attention it deserves. However, many are willing to at least help and have ample knowledge on the subject.

Tips on Potty-Training
I didn’t potty-train my child, so it might seem I have no potty-training tips to offer. I watched Montessori school teachers potty train my child quite easily, however, and can strongly recommend their techniques.

At my daughter’s Montessori school, they started working on potty-training at 16 months by building familiarity. Toddlers were placed on potties at times when they would normally need to go. Little potties were used (the kind you have to clean yourself) because the size and height is less intimidating for toddlers. The kids got used to sitting on a potty and also learned to recognize how their bodies feel when they need to go.

Start having your toddler doing this early (15 to 16 months) and make it an enjoyable enough that they’ll stay there for twenty minutes or so. Try giving your child books and toys. Continue doing this until you feel your child is ready to make the switch to underwear. My daughter did it for six months, although one of her teachers told me she was ready after three months.

Peer pressure helps. Potty training was a social event at my daughter’s school. A semi-circle of toddlers sat on potties in the bathroom looking at books. Unfortunately, it’s hard to replicate this at home, although you could take turns with other moms if you belong to a play group or have friends with kids in the same age range.

Switching to underwear is the critical last step for potty training. Pull-ups can be useful, but mask the wetness that kids need to understand cause and effect. There are a lot of accidents at first when you switch to underwear and there will be a lot of clean-up too, neither of which I had fully anticipated.

To stick with it, you need to spend potty training days in a place that you don’t mind accidents occurring - the kitchen, a family room downstairs, even the backyard on warm days. Make sure everything can be easily cleaned in the room you choose (take off cushions, remove rugs, etc.) Your child’s potty should be placed in this room during potty training.

Don’t feel like you have to stick to potty training all day, every day. After all, we put diapers on our daughter in the evenings and weekends, but her teachers still had her potty trained in two weeks. If you’re a stay-at-home mom, take the evenings and weekends off. If you’re a working mom, try designating two or three evenings in a week and one weekend day for potty-training.

Expect lots of accidents and don’t make a big deal out of them. Enthusiastically praise their successes and proudly tell other family members so they can praise your youngster too. Our daughter thrived on her teachers’ praise and we reinforced it at home. I used star stickers to mark my daughter’s success on a home-made calendar. She loved it!

When an accident occurs, try to have your child finish on the potty if he or she can make it there in time. This should still be considered a victory for the child.

I don’t know if it’s better to try potty-training early or wait until your child is older. Kids are able to comprehend and understand better when they are older, but could also be more resistant to changing their ways. I’ve heard that boys are more difficult to potty train than girls, but the boys in my daughter’s toddler class were potty trained about the same age as she was (22 months), although it might have taken a few more weeks for some of them.

Some kids just don’t care if they pee in their pants and it’s hard to get them motivated about it. Do whatever you need to do to get them to care about it. Tell them stories about how their heroes or heroines learned to use the potty. Heck, have their hero call your child to give him or her their congratulations for a success. Toddlers are pretty gullible and I’m sure someone in your family can adequately fake a voice.

Good luck! I hope you do better than I did. If not, consider a Montessori school.

Moms with Toddlers, Mom Work & Family, General Mom Madness

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Differing Parenting Styles: The Drill Sergeant vs. Mrs. Yes

January 25th, 2009

My husband was a total wimp with my daughter when she was little. His reaction to her temper tantrums was to carry her around the house showing her little toys and curiosities to amuse her out of her tantrums. She reacted to these attempts by taking the item in question and hurling it to the ground in a toddler rage.

He eventually (and with reluctance) allowed me to deal with the situation, which I considered straightforward. I carried her to her room, sat down with her, and let her have her fit in private. I didn’t try to placate her, argue with her, reason with her, or cajole her. I told her we could leave her room when she was ready to stop. It took a while for her to calm down the first time (she’s a very strong-willed girl), but eventually we got to the point when I only had to say we were going to have a time-out for the tantrum to stop.

It was difficult task for my husband to let me do this…his instinct was to comfort her whenever she cried. But it worked and I have been the disciplinarian in the family ever since.

Not that I’m at all strict. There are certain things that I will not tolerate (temper tantrums, defiance, bad manners, meanness, saying words like “poop” and “poopie” all the time). I’m rather indulgent on everything else, however.

My husband, on the other hand, has all the instincts of a drill sergeant. Lots of things, both big and small, bother him. And as my daughter grew out of babyhood, these things started annoying him more. Not that he disciplined our daughter, but he yelled at me about things she was or wasn’t doing (presumably so I would then act as the enforcer and change the behavior). I never did so, mainly because the small things that bothered him didn’t concern me - but also because I thought he should deal with it himself. And that’s what I told him.

Be careful what you wish for. My husband let loose his inner drill sergeant this year and suddenly started barking at our daughter about all sorts of things…whining, being argumentative, not picking up her mess, being careless with things, putting her feet on the walls, wiggling at the dinner table. No shrinking violet, our daughter yelled back. For a couple of months, I felt like I was in the middle of a combat zone.

I didn’t want to interfere. After all, I had told him to take care of these things himself. Plus, it would have made me angry if he intervened with me when I was correcting her…I shouldn’t do that to him. But really, is it a big deal if she had her feet on the wall in the living room? And a five-year old can’t help wiggling at the dinner table. She wiggles on a near-constant basis.

I finally asked him to pick his battles. Not everything is worth yelling over, especially if it might impact your relationship with your kids. It’s easy for parents to fall into the habit of yelling at your kids, myself included, but it’s not the best approach, particularly for things like wiggling at the table. Plus, it loses its effectiveness with repetition.

My husband did tone it down and is striking a much better balance with our daughter. And I must admit he is winning some important battles that I probably would have let fly. He has insisted that our daughter eat dinner with us more often, rather than eat at her little table in the kitchen where she can watch TV. (I let her get away with that more often than I should and I do know that I shouldn’t have. Kudos for Dad!) The best part is that he’s doing it without yelling.

Mom Work & Family

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