Wanted: 3 year old tamer & potty trainer

Work has mellowed out (a teensy bit) this week so I’m back to worrying about my son and how he’s not potty trained.  And how he’s dead set on pushing all of my buttons.  At once.   Once upon a time, I was so excited that he was moving on from the “terrible two’s”.  It was so close I could taste it.  Then somebody said, “Oh, wait until he’s 3.  That’s the worst.”  Whuck?  Why do people wait until you’re at the end of the 2’s stage, and think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, only to tell you, “Guess what?  That light is a Mack truck & it’s carrying a ton of bricks!  Have fun!”   Yeah, yeah, I know.  Every kid is different.  But seriously, I know a ton of people who complain about the 3’s.  Some mean, rotten person even told me that 4’s were no fun either.   C’mon, we barely got into the 3’s and you’re telling me it gets worse?  Just stab me in the heart and get it over with already.

In all honesty, I really don’t worry about what other people say.  Mr. T is going to do whatever it is he is going to do, and I’ll deal with it.  But, damn, if he isn’t acting like a typical 3 year old lately.  Case in point:  Driving home the other night, he starts whining and says, “Mommy, I wanna go hooommmme.”  (Long, drawn out and whiny.  Did I mention whiny?)  No problem, for once we’re doing what he wants to do.  “Okay, good, because that’s where we’re going.  We’re going home.”  Mr. T took 2 seconds to digest this and then starts, again with the whiny, pathetic voice, “No, I wanna go to schooooolll.”   Super.  Since we’re doing what he said he wanted to do, now he wants to do the opposite.    We’re working with him on the whining, telling him to just ask nicely, and “We can’t hear whining.”   It works once you remind him, but dear Lord, why is whining the default setting on 3 year olds?  Is there an override for that? 

The potty training is simply a battle of the wills at this point.  He’s not willing to do it, so it’s not happening.  And I’m not pushing him.  I know he’ll do it when he’s ready.  Then I get all concerned that maybe I’m not doing enough to get him there.  That’s one of the great things about being a Mommy: you usually worry no matter which course of action you take.  Am I pushing too hard?  Am I not bringing it up enough?  One day he’s asking to use the potty (although not actually going once he’s on it) and other times he wants nothing to do with it.  Nope, totally content to wear Pull-ups.  *sigh*  Seriously, I’m willing to pay someone to potty train him at this point.  Is there a “potty whisperer”? 

(Warning: Rant ahead)  Don’t even get me started on the teacher’s aide who asked me Monday if he had any siblings.  Now, let me say this:  Monday was a particularly bad day, complete with a total meltdown once we got to daycare.  Oh, what fun that was – screaming, pushing, throwing himself on the ground, etc.  I can’t even tell you what he was upset about.  I took him in the bathroom to have a private chat, which then he decided was a great opportunity to throw a plastic footstool.  Awesome.  Needless to say, that was another day that I did NOT get to work in a timely fashion.   So when I picked him up that afternoon, I was greeted with that question from the teacher’s aide.  No, Mr. T doesn’t have siblings.  And he’s not going to have any.  What I should have asked was, “Why?”  But I didn’t.  Even when she said, “Oh, that’s what I thought.”   At the time, I was frazzled, tired and just wanted to go home.  T was running around like a wild hyena and all I wanted to do was corral him to the door & go home.  Once I got in the car, I started thinking, “What the hell did she mean by that?”   Then I started getting pissy and of course, I’m assuming that her thinking T was an only child had a negative connotation.   Screw her, my kid is great.  Yeah, he’s 3 and he likes pushing the limits lately.  But he’s polite, sweet, smart, charming, funny and the cutest frickin’ kid you’ve ever seen.  How many kids say “Excuse me” and smile sweetly every time they fart?  He’s been around other kids on a nearly daily basis since he was 8 weeks old.  He shares, hugs friends when they are upset, and loves playing with his friends on the playground.  He’s also happiest when you’re reading him a book or showing him how to draw shapes.  He’s not missing on anything by not having a sibling and he’s certainly not spoiled.  I’ll be damned if I’m going to have “one of those” kids.  So, Ms. Teachers Aide Who Only Has Known My Kid for a Month, SUCK IT.  (Gee, do you think I’m a bit touchy about it?) 

But he did the coolest thing tonight.  He tried to draw a T for the first time!  And he did an awesome job!  Okay, so T’s aren’t exactly the most challenging of the letters, but I was proud of him.  He said, “I can’t do it, Mommy.”  And then, he did it!   Then he drew a monster truck (of course) and for the first time I can think of, it actually looked like something vaguely resembling a monster truck and not scribbles.   Then he flipped the page and drew a pumpkin – with a smiley face!  So, having a 3 year old isn’t so bad after all.  Maybe I should tape the pumpkin drawing up in my car somewhere to remind me it’s not all whining and meltdowns.

This is not my week…

I’ve been told that the following email I wrote to a friend should be put on my blog. So here goes, I hope others can find some amusement in my crappy day!

I almost lost my Schmidt (as they say in one of my favorite blogs, www.rantsfrommommyland.com) Monday night in Walmart w/ T. It was the longest check out experience with only 3 items in the history of Wal-Mart. Well, at least my history with Wal-Mart. Because I’m all hormonal and hair-triggery this week, I’m so happy I maintained my composure. I left work late, and when I got home, hubby was in the middle of cleaning the A/C coil outside. He mentioned going out to eat and I really needed to get invitation envelopes for the awesome ones I made for T’s birthday online. So he suggested I take T to Wal-Mart and pick up Chinese on the way home. Super. We start out at like 6:45, which is already kinda late in my book, and get to Wal-mart. Except I realized half way there that my cell phone has died & I don’t have a car charger for the new blackberry yet. So no phoning in the Chinese order from the Wal-Mart parking lot & breeze in to get it on the way home. Great. So I go in & find the envelopes, and go to find another 5 pack of matchbox cars to use as potty-training bribes, because even though I could carpet my living room in matchbox cars, I will do ANYTHING to get him out of pull-ups. And matchbox cars seem to work better than anything. So we’re cruising the toy dept. and he spots the monster trucks. Oh crap. I don’t know that Wal-mart well enough to avoid the aisle, but if it was Target, I could have totally side stepped that. I calmly explain that he hasn’t been good enough yet to get the 2 monster trucks on the table back, so I’m not going to buy him a new one. (If he’s “not nice” we take away a monster truck & it sits on the kitchen table, taunting him, until he’s good for a whole day & can get it back.) So we take 5 years to pick out a box of matchbox cars, because he’s tired and wired & completely ADD at this point, but I get him out of that aisle. Only to find monster trucks on an end-cap. And I see “Backwards Bob” which is one of his favorite trucks, and one I never see. So I tell him we’ll get Backwards Bob.  Except, he doesn’t want Backwards Bob. He wants something called “Rap Attack” (which is aptly named, now that I think about. My ears feel attacked if I hear rap.) because it has a bright green undercarriage. We compromise & get Pure Adrenaline, which is actually not a compromise since I told him we weren’t buying one. He’s tricky smart, that one.

We finally go to the checkout. There’s a line at each of the “check yourself out” registers, and I figure, this can’t take that long, right? WRONG. Apparently people who have no idea how to work those things are always the ones that wind up in front of me at one of those things. We stand there for what feels like 1/2 of eternity, and I decide that the express lane (10 items) w/ a cashier has to move quicker. We move over there and at first things seem good. I’m like 4th in line, and someone is already moving on. Super. Then these people whip out a Visa gift card, and the delay begins. After a while, the cashier walks off, probably to go find somebody, and I figure at this point the scan-it-yourself challenged people must have moved on. So I go back over there. WRONG AGAIN. So I’m still waiting in line, for what seems like the other 1/2 of eternity. I tell T to get his finger out of his nose & he WIGS OUT. Kinda doing a raspberry sound thing w/ his mouth /kinda spitting, throws down his copy of the invitation I gave him and when I take both sides of his head and say sternly & quietly “you better quit” he decides to SCREAM. Yes, our first public fit. So I tell him the monster truck is going back. I get the whole “Noooo!” and crying bit, but I maintained my composure and explained to him it was going back because he wasn’t being nice. And I asked him to REMEMBER what it was that he did that wasn’t nice. He actually calmed down, but he wasn’t too happy. I so wanted to just pick him up & leave Wal-Mart when he did that, but I REALLY needed those envelopes!

So by now, there’s still a line of people who can’t work the scanners. And since some of those were there to witness the fit, I decide to go back to the 10 items w/ the cashier line. I finally wait for the guy who worked the register like he was coated in molasses to ring us up & get out of there. 45 MINUTES LATER. I know I spent around 3/4 of that in line. And now it’s REALLY late and I still have to go over and wait for Chinese food. Get to the restaurant, threatened T w/ another monster truck taken away if he acts up, and go in. Thank goodness they are nice & it took less than 10 minutes to finish the order because T is WAY beyond tired at this point & wants really bad to take his truck (one he brought with him) & roll around on the floor. I have no idea why. We get home, and now T, who before was really excited about trying “Chinese noodles” aka chicken lo mein (I figure it’s gotta be more nutritious than sweet & sour chicken), suddenly doesn’t wan’t to eat it AT ALL. But he’ll chow down on the steamed broccoli from my General Tso’s in a heartbeat. Go figure. He eats some of hubby’s won tons from his soup and we finally get him to at least TRY a lo mein noodle, and lo & behold, he likes it! Then he starts eating it w/ his hands. We finally corralled him into bed right at 9, which is late for him. Monday was not my favorite day, for obvious reasons.

I think this WEEK is just not my week.  Last night I broke the carafe for the coffee pot while setting it up for this AM.  So no coffee for me this AM, and it’s my birthday.  RIP coffee pot.  And I was so desperate this AM I drank diet Mountain Dew.  Because the cat, who is normally banned from our bedroom because as a kitten he dive bombed us from the top of the headboard at like, oh, 2 AM, somehow got into the bedroom and started meowing at some hellish hour before it was light.  Maybe he just wanted to be the first to tell me happy bday?  Now I’ve got borderline-drinkable office coffee and trying to decide what to do for lunch.  A friend who was going to take me to lunch today is out with her mother who broke her hip last night.   I didn’t bring lunch today, which is small potatoes compared to having  a mother in the hospital with a broke hip, but still, not shaping up to be “my week”, is it?   That’s okay, I still have a super awesome kiddo, even if he throws fits in Wal-Mart, and I’m really looking forward to his birthday in a couple of weeks!  THAT I will have some control over & it will be great!

By the way, Rants from Mommyland is still all kinds of awesome, even if you don’t have kids.  There is the potential there to seriously pee your pants laughing, they are so hysterical!  They should have a warning that you may need a change of undies, Depends, or something when viewing their site.