A room of our own

Head full of a summer cold, eyebrow swollen up from an accidental konk with Daniel’s extra-hard skull, I am reeling from our first attempt at a shared bedroom for the boys. I have been resisting it for almost a year, out of fear mostly. Fear of change, grief at Daniel growing ever upward. A grew up sharing a room with her sibs, and Ben has asked for Daniel to join him in his room for months, asked again today. We said “why not?” On a trial basis, moved Daniel’s small mattress into a corner of the room, made it cozy. The boys went wild! The promise of their first night together in that room motivated them to move along the bath-teeth-jammies routine. I had popped an extra-strength Advil in anticipation of A going to work and my imminent role in commandeering this adventurous ride (did I mention already that I have a disgusting head cold??). Oh, there was cuteness at first; a boy snuggled up to each side of me on Daniel’s wee bed for stories. But Ben just eventually flipped, refusing to have D in his room, freaking out about the change, the extra stuff in his room, the noise (D was actually fairly quiet, though nothing like asleep!). I heaved everything back into the crib, the eco-mattress weighing a farking ton, Daniel upset, me tired and frustrated. He powerfully jumps up suddenly as I lean over and “thwack” go our heads. I swear I heard a sound from my skull, then a piercing pain, and we both dissolve in a pile of tears, hugging each other in agony and shock. Ben eventually shuffles in to see what’s up.

Where do we go from here? I know that if I had left them long enough, hours maybe, they’d be passed out in there together. Perhaps it’s small-t trauma from years of sleep training, heavy attachment to bedtime being on-time. Maybe it’s my inner mama ache at the inauguration of a “big boy’s room”. Does every mama try and keep their youngest babies for as long as possible? I won’t even mention our half-assed motivation for potty training him (yep, he’s 3.5 yrs old!). We are kind of trying, with M&M rewards, and underwear time. Not much is cuter than that round little tush in tiny undies (size 2!). Daniel has gotten fierce and willful of late, while also weeping at every transition and separation; a push and pull of independence. A new pre-school, a new language (French). Maybe it’s enough. Maybe we’ll try this bedroom thing another time, another day, once my nasal passages dry up, my bump subsides and the boys forget this ordeal long enough to say “can we share a room?” again.

E

Potty Boot Camp

Day 3. Morale waivers. Today has actually been a great day, lots of toilet use, one “wild” pee in the grass. Even a real, bonafide poo in the toilet. I hear that this is the piece de resistance of potty training. We have hit the home run!! Well, Ben is 3.5 years old, so there is that. You can’t say that he doesn’t get the concept. It’s just we never pushed it, and finally he needs to sort it out by September and we hustled things along cold-turkey (except pull-ups at night). We are deeply proud of him, to say the least. Great. So no problem right? Now ask us how the mothers are faring…. Poorly at best (brief moments of euphoria notwithstanding). We are both control oriented people, we like things tidy, we have a routine… This week-end has blasted that open. We cannot show frustration to our brave, struggling boy, so we turn on ourselves and each other and that spot on the floor (why won’t it come OUT?!?!). We have each had to take time outs of our own to cool off, decompress, recommit. Ben does “quiet time” each day he is home, for 30 min. He stays in the play-room (mostly), listens to music, does his stickers or whatever. I try and actually relax during that time since Daniel is napping. Today I dealt with phone operators while Ben yelled and pounded on the door until finally I went to end our mutual misery at the designated time, only to find that he had stickered his penis. He has also become deeply curious about his anatomy: “what is the hole the pee comes out of called?”, “what is the hole the poo comes out of called?” It’s all about holes. (What the heck is the pee hole called anyway??) So, now our child knows the term anus, knows the cats have one and has decided he doesn’t like the word (just “bum” please). Anyway, after removing the stickers, he proceeded to help me in the kitchen. Bless him. But he was naked on the lower half, and every time he heard water he thought he had to pee, would run to the toilet, aim, false alarm, hand wash (or not, chasing him, returning to bathroom, hand wash), undies, fight about undies, get a chocolate if he actually peed, inability to ignore his own now easily available body parts, more hand washing, repeat. Over and over. Cute, but massively disruptive to my attempt to attack the splats of mashed sweet potato dripping down the side of the cupboard, the cheese gunk stuck to the counter, the mountain of dishes from cooking and playing all this rainy day of Stuck At Home Learning to Potty. This is HUGE. I know it. Earthshattering to his existential sense of self. Plus, he gets one M&M for each pee, two for a poo. I am starting to feel like moms should get the same!

E