As soon as you’re feeling comfortable, your kids can sense it, and then they ruthlessly take that comfort away from you. I was feeling like an incredibly successful parent. I had potty trained BigBoyBear with no effort at all. One day, when he was 3.5 years old, I was convinced that he would graduate high school in diapers. To allay my fears, I put Bear in regular undies and sent him to school. “Good luck!” I called as he walked into his classroom. But, for reasons I can’t explain, my lazy approach worked. Bear was suddenly potty trained. I was feeling smug and complacent.
Then, it happened. We were playing at the park when I saw Bear freeze, and his eyes glazed over. He immediately gave me a panicked look and said “I need to go poopoo!” Ok, no big deal. The park is literally one block from our house. But nope, Bear couldn’t wait. He had to go immediately and looked like he was already starting to push. Then I panicked. I looked around the park. Fortunately, it was one of the first 40 degree days, so it was too cold for Belgians to be outside. We were in the park alone. I walked over to Bear, pulled down his pants and undies and helped him squat. He immediately pushed out some of the largest kid/man/human poop that ever existed. Seriously. At the same time, LadyLove knew that I was distracted and made her break for the traffic filled street.
Then, I made Bear stand there, with his pants around his ankles, in the chilly temps. I ran and caught up with LadyLove who was laughing like a psychotic hyena about 5 feet from the street. I carried her back and strapped her into the stroller. This caused her to scream and created quite a scene. At that point, I realized that there were now two other families in the park. One was watching LadyLove scream, and the other was watching Bear stand motionless with his pants and undies around his ankles.
I wheeled the stroller over to Bear and looked for LadyLove’s baby wipes. I found them and wiped Bear’s tush. I had nowhere to put the trash. Yup. I left a pile of wipes next to his pile of poop. Then, we made a quick escape.
Parenting...with no previous experience 