Almost 3 year old is finally flirting with the idea of using a toilet. He first showed an interest a year ago but is now starting to get serious and moving the relationship on to the next stage.
First thing in the morning he comes downstairs, removes his nappy with a flourish, and takes himself off to the toilet to have a pee. Unlike his brothers, who at his age happily sat on the toilet to have a pee, he insists on standing ‘like daddy’, which is tricky given his short stature and means he needs to slightly elevate himself onto his tiptoes. On completion of this morning ritual, we dutifully applaud and hug him and he happily basks in the praise. So far so good.
The problem is, roughly three hours later, he'll wander off into a corner, again remove nappy and take a dump on the floor.
If I'm not in the room, he will go and fetch toilet roll and anti bacterial spray and go to work on the mess. Usually, by the time I realise what's happening, he looks like he's on a dirty protest.
Carrying him at arms length up to the bath, I try explain why he needs to inform me when he feels the need to use the toilet, but at this stage he’s in firm denial of the whole event, insisting 'I did go on the toilet mama, I DID'.
It’s a phase, I know, I’ve been here three times already and I’m a firm believer in letting them get on with it and work it out for themselves.
In fact, I’m often at a loss when other mothers ask me how I ‘toilet trained’ my children. You see, the very phrase itself demands my participation, it implies a programme, an objective and frankly there is enough to do each day without putting myself through the trauma of trying convince a toddler that he needs to sit on that big scary seat with a hole and run the risk of being swallowed up by it.
I found that each child reached a point where they naturally wanted to use the toilet, a stage which was preceded by the whole standing in the corner and denying that they needed to ‘go’ phase.
My approach to parenthood has always been one of ‘take the easiest route’. As babies this worked wonderfully. They cried, I fed them, they stopped crying. They woke in the night, I fed them, they went back to sleep. Sometimes I used to think that other mothers were, at best, mad, at worse simply making it all up, when they told me they hadn’t slept in days because of the 'baby'. The nightmare of walking the floor at 3am just didn’t feature in my children's babyhood. I had the secret but obvious formula!
Cry+milk=stop crying/go to sleep.
So I was lucky, the babies were easy, so I kept having them. However, nobody told me about the whole toddler/rest of their life phase, which has proven to be far more complicated than the baby routine. A simple stroll through the mall with four of them is enough to get the entire staff involved.
This is due to the fact that almost three year old insists on going into every shop we pass (often emerging, inexplicably, with chocolates), while 5 year old boy runs on ahead, inevitably losing us, almost 7 year old boy insists on one cartwheel for every three steps he takes and eldest girl, almost certainly hormonal (at 8), weeps at the unfairness of life (she can't go to 'Claire's', wants a drink, hates having 3 brothers...etc..). At times it feels like we're a travelling circus, or dubious celebrities, as the staff emerge from each shop we pass, to discuss and witness our progress from one end of the mall to the other. ‘Oh ma’am, haha, you can’t control your children, haha’ one giggling staff member told me recently.
Even crossing the road makes me feel like I’m in a scene from Mission Impossible. The other day we took them to ‘Fun City’ (fun for who?) in order to throw them all in the crèche and buy ourselves a child-free hour. DH helpfully sat in the food court finishing lunch while I herded them towards the crèche. Almost three year old immediately ran for the little merry-go-round and proceeded to climb on, eldest girl ran off in the other direction towards the car games, 5 year old boy was tugging my sleeve looking for tokens while I fished in my bag for one of those blasted cards they insist you use in there. Almost 7 year old was out of sight.
Finding my wallet but no card, I shot a look around for almost three year old, who has a tendency to attach himself to other families, and as I did so, I stepped back and found something under my feet, thinking it was almost three year old, I attempted to side step him but this child was bigger and longer and somehow became entangled with my flip flops as my feet swept up in front of me and I landed, arse first, onto his head.
At this point splayed on top of the child, I twisted around to discover that is was almost 7 year old boy who was my victim. As we disentagled ourselves, the staff made a rush to help but I waved them away ‘it’s fine, really’ ( I had a massive bruise on my thigh for days). Shamed and furious, but feeling sorry for almost 7 year old, the side of his head very, very red, I scrambled to my feet with as much dignity I could muster, and gathered up my bags and buggy.
Head held high, I herded my now silent children towards the crèche (almost 7 year old boy looked as if he was suffering post traumatic shock disorder) and then limped back to DH who laughed like a drain at my misadventure.
Parenthood isn’t easy, especially when you’re on the flat of your back in Fun City (DH loved that line...for all the wrong reasons) or cleaning up a pooh-smeared sofa. It will get easier, or at least the current set of problems (ie, incontinence, running in front of traffic, cartwheeling in public) will be replaced with more sophisticated problems, but then there is always boarding school....
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