All the Horrible Girliness

I may have ever-so-slightly overshot things in the potty training arena. I bought these little 100-calorie packs of cookies at Trader Joe's and told him he could have one if he went potty in the toilet. I underestimated his - I don't think "desire" is enough word - for cookies. He ran immediately to the toilet and climbed on and pushed, straining, his little face turning red. Then he got manic, yelling about not being able to make it come out, could I push it out? And I'm like, oh shit, this isn't right. So I tell him it's not good to try so hard, and we could try again later, and he screamed and wept and said "Don't pick me up!" in a total panic. He was freaking out so I tried to force him off the toilet and he did his limp noodle routine and finally I just walked out, sat on the carpet outside the bathroom and looked down at my DS until he decided to climb off.

Then we had mac & cheese and pears and iced tea. These things help a lot.

At this age you have a few things down. You can, with absolutism, tell people about certain things that work for your kid, and things that don't under any circumstances, and stuff that he likes and dislikes, and what you do in your family, and where in his development he's ahead and where he might be the wee-est bit behind. But there are still these times where I just feel like such a parent, in the most frightening sense of the word, where you not only are concerned but you know beyond any doubt that you're doing it wrong.

Spongebob helps also. I'm glad he's into Spongebob because it's so weird, random, and horrifying. I feel in one very embarrassing small spot in my stomach that the popular kids would like Spongebob. My childhood social life was so terrifying; I was always at least one step behind everybody. It was like how you know a band is so over when your mom says she's into it. I would get into the vest and jeans thing a year after it was in, and I'd have only one outfit like it, and only on that day would I feel great about myself. I wasn't athletic; I sucked at soccer and the rest of the team hated me. I couldn't watch horror movies or MTV. So now there's this oblong little nut sitting heavily in my gut that tells me to be one of those horrible permissive parents who lets their kids watch whatever and picks up porn for her boys and installs a jacuzzi so he can have naked hot tub parties and serves everyone beers... and that's just the fourth grade. Because god, wouldn't it be nice to wake up looking forward to that day at school, and having a closet full of clothes that are all fashion forward, and one of the newest bikes or motorized scooters or Ferraris or whatever, so that you don't have to walk around with your head down day after day and plot against the plots and separate the kids who hate you from the kids who hate you but pretend not to...

posted by Samus @ 1:12 PM