2.5 Years: I
don’t need to wear two diapers. That would be redundant. Twice.
One of my biggest frustrations during the long years of potty-training—a challenge that started at 18 months and lasted all the way until my daughter’s fourth birthday—came from what I’d seen of other kids’ development. To me, based on everything I had seen, there was an order of development that was simply standard. A baby walks, then says a few words, then potty-trains—and the complete sentences came far later.
My daughter took everything I thought I knew about child development and turned it upside-down, especially when it came to potty-training. She was speaking in full sentences when she hadn’t yet managed to drop even a token poop into her Princess Throne potty. I found myself repeatedly groaning as I cleaned up pee or poop, “If she’s old enough to talk to me about diapers, she’s old enough not to use them!”
Still, the talking continued, often in full conversations with tidbits like, “I don’t like potties. I prefer to use diapers,” and, one day, “I don’t need to wear two diapers. That would be redundant. Twice.”
The second statement was almost certainly influenced by her asking me what ‘wur-dun-dent” meant, a few days prior. I had told her, using eating with two forks as an example, “redundant” meant “twice, unnecessarily.” I didn’t think she’d quite grokked the meaning of the word, until she used it a few days later to describe the situation when she’d accidentally grabbed two diapers, instead of one, when she came to alert me that she needed a change.
I told myself that any child who could use the word “redundant” couldn’t possibly take much longer to be potty trained. It was a full year and a half before the diapers, redundant and otherwise, were finally a thing of the past for our household.
One of my biggest frustrations during the long years of potty-training—a challenge that started at 18 months and lasted all the way until my daughter’s fourth birthday—came from what I’d seen of other kids’ development. To me, based on everything I had seen, there was an order of development that was simply standard. A baby walks, then says a few words, then potty-trains—and the complete sentences came far later.
My daughter took everything I thought I knew about child development and turned it upside-down, especially when it came to potty-training. She was speaking in full sentences when she hadn’t yet managed to drop even a token poop into her Princess Throne potty. I found myself repeatedly groaning as I cleaned up pee or poop, “If she’s old enough to talk to me about diapers, she’s old enough not to use them!”
Still, the talking continued, often in full conversations with tidbits like, “I don’t like potties. I prefer to use diapers,” and, one day, “I don’t need to wear two diapers. That would be redundant. Twice.”
The second statement was almost certainly influenced by her asking me what ‘wur-dun-dent” meant, a few days prior. I had told her, using eating with two forks as an example, “redundant” meant “twice, unnecessarily.” I didn’t think she’d quite grokked the meaning of the word, until she used it a few days later to describe the situation when she’d accidentally grabbed two diapers, instead of one, when she came to alert me that she needed a change.
I told myself that any child who could use the word “redundant” couldn’t possibly take much longer to be potty trained. It was a full year and a half before the diapers, redundant and otherwise, were finally a thing of the past for our household.
No comments:
Post a Comment