Sunday, February 10, 2013

Cleanest bathroom ever

I am losing my mind. And I don't mean that figuratively. I mean it literally. We are living in a world with an infant right now, even though the infant is still in my belly and we have a toddler.

Every night, at any time between 1-3am, when I get up to go to the washroom, Aryn's light is on in her bedroom. I go in there, and she's sitting there reading a book.

"Hi, Mommy!"

I want to lose my mind.

I lay her back down, change her diaper (I sometimes assume this is all due to potty training...), tuck her in and go back to bed.

Then I lay there and think of all the reasons this is happening and how to resolve it the following night: she's too hot (get new short-sleeved pyjamas), she has to pee (decide to wake her up earlier for pee time), she hears a scary noise (kill everyone in the vicinity of our house), she gets woken by her sound machine (smash it to smithereens), her teeth hurt (stock up on Tylenol and don't use it sparingly), she's hungry (force feed her until her pants burst), she misses me (create a life-sized sleep dummy of myself for her bed).

Nothing. Works.

I don't know the reason for these mid-night wakeups. What I do know is that I hate this whole phase with every ounce of my being. We are exhausted. We are all frustrated. We are all throwing tantrums - yes, even myself and Ryan are laying on the floor kicking and screaming in desperation.

And then, when she's back to sleep, I can only assume she'll sleep in later in the morning. It's the weekend - we may sleep in until 8am!

Nope.

6:20am. Light on, door knocking, our bedroom light flicks on.

I have contacted every manufacturer of toddler-safety products and requested one that keeps lights off. I don't care if it's a super-huge mallet that smacks that little finger out of the way while it reaches for the light, or a life-sized "mommy statue" that belts out "GET BACK TO BED!" at the slightest sense of movement. Something. Anything. I don't care if it's hundreds or thousands of dollars - I will purchase it. I'll take out a loan. I'll be the first one in line.

If anyone has suggestions, I will take them!

I have also decided that parents with potty-training toddlers have the cleanest bathrooms in the world. Why? Because every time they miss, or spray, or stand in the corner (instead of sitting on the potty that's literally mere centimetres from them), you have to wash the entire floor, disinfect it, and be prepared to do it all over again in half an hour.

So, in response to my earlier post about how disgusting my bathroom was pre-Christmas, it is now the opposite. Other than the toilet being unable to be used by adults due to the Cars toilet seat wedged in there so tightly that it cannot be removed, it's the cleanest bathroom in our house.

Oh, and "Cars?" you ask? Well.

Yesterday, my friend brought her little boy to our house who is also on the 'sunlight-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel' potty training train had a Cars toilet seat. Well. Aryn HAD to pee on it twice while he was here. It was HER toilet. So, in hopes that it would welcome more potty breaks, I ran to Walmart and bought one.

It seems to work. We've had dry diapers and dry pants for a few days now. She runs to us with "Mommy! Pee!" or "Mommy! Poop!". It doesn't matter what I'm doing; on the phone, doing laundry, washing the dishes (ha, who am I kidding - I never clean unless I have to!) - the world stops for potty breaks.

And let's talk about the mini potties and the big potties. Whoever's big idea it was to create those little portable potties, I hate you with a passion. The kid sits on it, does her business, and then it's MY job to clean it all up. I'd have happily bypassed the whole mini-potty, but my husband was convinced the mini-potty would revolutionize the potty training business in our house.

And while it has technically worked, it has also re-brought-up my nausea whenever I have to clean the damn thing out. Pee is ok. The other, is not. Grossness.

Our potty training has become a daily comedy act and I empathise with the millions of moms who have had to do this prior to me. And I can't wait to tell Aryn about the time she pooped in her brand new panties when she's older. I'm pretty sure it'll be good leverage when she gets mad at me for not allowing her to go to a party at some boys house.

Being a mom is tough, exhausting work. And I'm grateful for those spur of the moment kisses and hugs, the sound of the name "mommy" (except at 2am), and the beautiful pictures this kid draws for me. Because if it weren't for those things, I am pretty sure I'd be off to purchase a straight jacket and volunteering for experiments.

2 comments:

  1. Have you tried Melatonin? It sounds like her circuit is off. Try that an unscrewing her light bulb. And maybe putting the potty in her room at night? And make sure her furniture is bolted to the wall if you havent done that yet!

    Thats all I got. Lol

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  2. Quinn (my youngest) was a night waker. It sucked. We took out the lightbulb and she thought her light was broken until well past the age of four.
    J

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