*I’m editing some key words in this post because I am really freaking sick of Google perverts finding this post. If you’re looking for “h1gh sch00l girls wearing d1apers,” go burn in hell, mmm-kay?

In case you didn’t know, p0tty training is hard. It’s possible my memory is fuzzy, but it feels about as labor-intensive as those first few weeks with a newborn, mainly because you have to be attending to your child every. single. minute. And apparently it’s just as exhausting for her as it is for us, as evidenced by the fact that she’s taken two naps a day since we started this process.

Day one, before the tears started.

We’ve basically gone cold-turkey with the d1apers. She’s been wearing big-girl p@nties, with Pull-Ups at naptime and bedtime. The problem is, I don’t think Catie has ever had a clue about when she needs to pee at all – that’s the burden of modern disposable diapers; they pull the moisture away so effectively that she’s never felt wet before – and feeling the pee run down her legs really upsets her. It might be partly that she’s embarassed, even though we do the whole “hey, it’s ok, you’re fine, let’s just clean it up and we’ll try to use the potty next time, ok?” thing. I think mostly, she just hates the sensation of that wet stuff on her legs. So she’s been trying to hold it, which makes her tummy hurt, which makes her cry more.

So that brings us to a problem. She’s now decided that she hates peeing. She certainly doesn’t want to pee on herself, but she also doesn’t want to pee in the p0tty or even in her Pull-Up (when she has one on). So Dave and I have been spending a lot of time sitting on the floor next to her, hugging her while she sits on the potty and cries because she’s afraid to pee. (To be clear, we’re not making her sit on the potty. I ask her if she wants to sit and she says ok, then she cries because she doesn’t want to pee. But she doesn’t try to get up, and it’s certainly not like we’re forcing her to sit there against her will. She’s equally distraught when she pees on the living room rug.) In fact, the only time that peeing doesn’t upset her is if she pees while she’s sitting on my lap. Nice, right? I guess my legs feel sort of soft and cushiony like a d1aper. Lovely. I went through at least five pairs of pants yesterday before I finally wised up to what she was doing. And yes, I did feel pretty heartless last night when she was begging to sit on my lap (so she could get comfortable and pee on me) and I said no. I told her she could sit on my lap after she peed in the potty, but that didn’t really work.

Oh, thinking of bribes: we’ve been reading to her while she’s on the p0tty, and letting her watch cartoons (the p0tty is currently in the living room; gross, I know, but I can’t fit it in our tiny half-bathroom anyway), and offering M&M’s for both attempts and actual success on the potty. One bribe that actually worked is that yesterday, her little friend McKenzie came to the door to see if Catie could play, and I said no because I knew Catie needed to pee. Catie was so upset when I closed the door on McKenzie, and I told her that if she could pee on the p0tty, we could go outside and play with McKenzie. She peed more in the p0tty than any other time to date, so that seems to be an effective motivator. And we did go play, for about half an hour, until Catie peed in the neighbor’s yard, started to cry, and we had to go back inside to clean her up and calm her down.

And on the issue of poop: this morning, she was crying, grabbing her tush and saying, “Poop! Mommy, poop hurts!” Now, she hasn’t pooped since Friday night, so I have no doubt that she probably really does need to poop, and it probably does hurt. But she doesn’t want to poop on the p0tty, she doesn’t want to put on a d1aper (believe me, I offered it, more than once), and she doesn’t want to poop in her Pull-Up. So…? I have no idea how to help her with that. I also don’t know if it’s the poop that’s hurting her, or if she’s feeling pressure in her tummy from trying to hold in her pee.

So to sum up, potty training sucks. My back hurts from all of those potty-vigil hugs and book-readings, and Catie has red splotches on her face from constant crying. It’s awful. I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I was to drop her off at daycare this morning, just to get a break from it. Nicole (our baby-sitter) has an almost-3 year-old who’s been potty-trained for a while, so I’m hopeful she’ll be able to help Catie make some progress. But I sent her to daycare with d1apers, Pull-Ups, panties, and about a half-dozen changes of clothes, and just told Nicole to do what she could. I’m not worried about her undoing anything, since it feels like we still have miles of progress to make before we get there.

My parents arrive tomorrow. Let’s all say a prayer that Mimi and Pop-Pop bring some sort of magic wand in their suitcase.