Dispatches from the Potty Training Trenches
In my inaugural post last month, I mentioned that soon I’d share the hell that is potty training.
Hold onto your panties, writer-parents. Because I’ve been swimming in a world of excrement lately and thinking a lot about how it relates to writing.
Maybe you’re the parent of a toddler or preschool kid and find yourself in the sh*tter, too. (I cannot promise to flush the toilet metaphors.)
Or, maybe you have a baby and can sense the training-pants-and-mini-toilet phase lurking around the corner.
For many parents, myself included, potty training is some of the most tiresome work of caring for a child. It’s necessary, thankless, exhausting, and often nauseating.
Add to that a kid who wants to do everything her own way and on her own schedule, and you get a parenting nightmare so all-consuming—like the endless hallway with countless doors scenario—that you think you might never wake from it.
I’m not exaggerating. We’ve tried so many of the “expert tips” out there, including—
Let them choose their potty!
Have her blow bubbles through a straw to get the pee to come out!
Make the loudest, most epic fart noise until she laughs so hard the pee surges forth!
—but our daughter has taken her sweet time cozying up to the potty.
After a year of suggesting, coaxing, negotiating, bribing, begging, waking up at 3am and washing sheets, rushing with our daughter to the potty every half-hour, floods of accidents, and wrecking the environment and our wallets with twice weekly pull-up purchases, we have now backed off.
“Hey, you know what, our perfect little angel?” we said to her recently (in so many words). “We’re letting you take the lead when it comes to your bathroom business. So, when you are ready to use the potty, let us know, and we’ll be here to help you.”
It was like Encanto’s Luisa came and lifted a giant boulder off our shoulders—and our daughter’s. Her face relaxed into a big smile. “Okay, Mommy and Daddy,” she said. “I will let you know when I’m ready.”
And we are confident she will. Because our daughter knows her own mind, certainly as much as any three-year-old does (and then some).
Now, will her schedule align with our schedule? Will she be ready in time for important milestones, like moving to the next level of her Montessori program come fall with all of her potty-trained classmates? Who knows.
Her dad and I have no clue when she’ll start choosing the potty, but in deciding to let her take the lead (it turns out child-led potty training is a real thing!), we are choosing to trust that she’ll know when she’s ready.
And it’s this part of the whole potty training ordeal that I find most similar to the writing process.
I have been writing a novel for over four years now. In those years, I’ve generated over a thousand pages; countless spreadsheets, charts, and outlines; character sketches; background writing; compilations of researched material; and free writes that more or less center around some concept or theme or emotional perspective I’m addressing in my novel.
My self-imposed deadline for querying agents keeps getting pushed into the future, not because I’m undisciplined, procrastinating, or because I lack a writing habit, but because I know deep down that I’m still finding the story I want and need to tell. I need to give it time.
It’s like it’s 6pm on Thanksgiving, the appetizers and side dishes are gleaming on the table, all the guests are staring at the oven and salivating, but there’s no way around it: the turkey needs more time.
Or, more relevant to this post, it’s like when you’ve tried all the potty training tricks in the book for well over a year, see the school deadline looming on the horizon, but there’s no way around it: your kid needs more time.
Every parent’s journey with their child is unique, as is every writer’s journey with each project.
Lately, in both of these journeys, I’ve found freedom in letting go of the world’s how-to manuals so easily found on Google. Parenting and writing are hard work, but I also want to enjoy the time I spend with my kid and my book. (Life is as short as it is beautiful, after all.)
Just as I chose to become a mother and a writer, I can choose to trust myself to manage the obstacles that appear along the paths I’m forging. It’s one thing to consider advice; another to rely on it.
Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is to ignore all the shoulds and musts and need tos, connect with what we love about our kid and our book, and follow those lifelines of joy where they lead us (which might in fact be to a published novel and underpants).
Happy Friday!
Erin
How do you enjoy time with your kid(s) and/or writing? Let us know in the comments.
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