You are not quite two-and-a-half, and you've been potty trained for a few weeks now. Our first few outings without diapers were pretty terrifying for me. You haven't made many mistakes since you started wearing real underpants, but the times when you HAVE have been pretty hard for you to take. You stand there, wailing, inconsolable. I get that, for sure. It's awful to fail at something you're trying really hard at, and when the diaper you trusted to keep you dry through your whole nap gets all wedgied and stops working...well, it is just not fair.
So today at church was your second Sunday without diapers, and you were walking tall. You were so excited to use the big girl potty the second we got there, and last week you did just fine. But this time, while you were so high up on that toilet, the auto-flush mechanism went off. It was loud, and splashy, and I saw it in your wide-eyed face. Fear. Suddenly, this was not fun. You were done, though, and so up went the pants and we were out the door. And everything was fine, until just before we were ready to leave, when I could tell you had to go.
'NOOoooo...' you said once we got into the bathroom. 'I don't want to go on THAT potty. It's too loud.' I propped the church bulletin over the motion sensor on the wall and reassured you that I fixed it. No surprise flushes this time, Baby Girl. But you were not reassured. You wanted nothing to do with that toilet.
So I sat down on the seat myself, far back so that there was space in front of me for you to sit. Nope, you were not having it. You let out a shriek, then a wail, then a host of echo-y sobs that traveled right out to the congregation outside. 'NOOO Mommy! NO! I don't WANT to pee pee on THAT potty!'
I asked. I joked. I bribed. I promised. I even lifted you up and sat you on the toilet, thinking that you just needed to see how not-scary the toilet was. You arched your back and screamed, kicked, and slid right to the floor. Sigh.
Our plans to drop by the store on the way home were gone. We both pouted on the way home - you, because I tried to force you to do something you were scared of and not ready to do again. And I pouted because I couldn't believe I did that to you.
I do it to myself all the time - I push, I suck it up, I force it - and in some ways, this has really been a good thing in my life. I want to promise you, Allegra, that I will not push you. And yet, sometimes I will push without even realizing it until it is too late. Maybe there will be times that you'll need it, and it'll be the right thing. But I know that my job is NOT to force you to grow or to try new things. My job is to stand behind you, to be quiet and strong as you gather the strength to push yourself.
So, Ladybug, I'm sorry. I know how brave you are, and yet how soft your heart is and how small you feel sometimes. You ARE small. The world, full of sirens and crocodiles and big toilets that flush unexpectedly, can be really terrifying. But you have everything that you need to navigate the world all by yourself. We believe in you, and we will do our best to let you chart your own course, in your own time.
