Skip to main content

Power Struggles

What is it about power struggles and going to the bathroom? I know this is only a HINT of what I am going to face come The Rabbit's teen years, and I am terrified.

I can tell when she needs to go...she hops around like, a, well, rabbit, holding herself. But god forbid I would ask her if she needs to go, or worse, TELL her to go. She screams at me like I am asking her to take her beloved stuffed dog and throw him out the window. Or let me wash him.

So we do this: I see her jumping. I say, "Let's go to the bathroom PLEASE." She screams. I back down. 20 minutes later. Repeat. 10 minutes Repeat with escalating voice levels. 12 minutes later, a hurried run to the bathroom and pee streaming down her legs, on to her clothes, her socks, the rug, with her smiling like, "You can't get me."

Short of demanding she clean it up (She's 4...can I do this????? Don't send me hate mail....) I don't know what else to do except keep heading down to the laundry twice a week.

Help.

Comments

Kate B. said…
Yep. We're with you on this one. Except the Small(er) One has now graduated to shouting "I'm going to wee my pants" when I've cruelly refused her whatever happens to be her heart's desire at that very second.

I think it's an attention thing, closely related to a 'ha! I've figured out a way to push your mental mommy buttons'. The cure? Buggered if I know.
Manhattan Mama said…
So when they hit 16 is it going to be, "I'm NOT throwing out my pot!"?????

Popular posts from this blog

Apologies for being incommunicado this week and hope none of you out there are too distraught not to be receiving the usual almost-daily MotV missives. The reason for the silence is that I'm up to my neck, metaphorically-speaking, in research papers for my first grad course assessment. This experience has made me realise how rigorously un-academic I am in my thinking. It has also illuminated how reliant I am on red wine in order to get through endless evenings typing furiously on my laptop, not to mention the fueling of increasingly colorful curses that I feel obliged to aim at the University's online library system which consistently refuses to spit out any of the journals I'm desperate for (I refuse to believe this is 100% due to my technical incompetence...) Oh well, if this is the price one has to pay in order to realize a long-cherished dream then it's not all that bad... No one ever said a mid-life career change would be easy. Wish me luck!

A thought

Perhaps sometimes a gift can be delivered in the guise of a tragedy. It's just a matter of perception, after all. I suspect that the talent lies in looking beyond the surface to what lies beneath and beyond. And, of course, being able to make sense of it all and going on to apply that knowledge to building a productive way forward. Here's hoping.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

A friend recently emailed me to say that her big memory of her stay with us last year is that she had a great birthday, one of the few where she didn't 'act like a spoiled grumpy princess'. She tried to give me all the credit but as I explained to her, it was all down to having a fellow female organising the birthday fun rather than leaving it to her partner. Her email got me thinking about birthdays and how very different men and women are in their attitudes to celebrating special occasions. It also had me thinking about my birthday two years ago when I threw a major tantrum in the Carrefour car-park after being told that we were off to do the weekly shop, kids in tow, which was simply the final straw at the end of a very uninspiring day. In contrast, my birthday last year was rather lovely (a morning on my own in a spa with no mobile coverage, pure selfish bliss). This year - in a few short months, eek! - I'll be hitting the grand old age of 38. This will be my las...