Toilet training is shit....literally.

Toilet training is a nightmare and something that you just keep putting off until you just can’t put it off any longer. Unless of course you have been lifting your child’s bum in the air since day dot over the toilet and encouraging them to faecal drop! Who has the time or energy? People do it though just like some people communicate to their children via sign language for the first months of their lives. Personally I’m a little old fashioned and prefer to wait until my baby can actually talk and think for themselves! Not that I’m criticising other peoples’ parenting choices. That’s a lie. I am but surely you should enjoy the pure innocence of those first few months. A baby relies on you for everything- that’s the point. They already have a system of communicating- it’s called crying and some babies are very good at it. Not all cries are the same and that’s what you have to figure out as the parent. Much easier than sign language I would imagine!

Dear Reader I have completely digressed! They say that the ideal age for toilet training is two for girls and three for boys. Of course your mum will tell you that you personally and every sibling you have was out of nappies by the age of two. Maybe you were but that’s because you probably weren’t in disposables so the incentive to get out of all that washing was huge. Also who could be bothered with the pins- good job disposables exist otherwise my two would look like they have regular acupuncture sessions!

Son number one was three and a half before the nappies came off for the last time. He was a nightmare to train, I tried star charts, blackmail and letting him run around naked (at home I will point out). He would go to kinder in underpants and not use the toilet from nine to five. They would put him on the toilet but he just refused to go and then on the way from kinder collection to the car park he would always wet his pants. It was infuriating and I felt that the whole process was souring our relationship because I knew he could do it. Eventually, I just bit the bullet and put him in underpants all the time. It took just three days for him to realise that I wouldn’t give in like I had before. He is a very stubborn child or as my husband likes to point out “just like his mummy.”

 They can regress though as we found out on a recent holiday. Imagine the scene, we’re at lunch with the in-laws and we’ve just started our second bottle of wine(okay we’re not going to win parents of the year). We thought Jake had been playing with another little girl when we saw him waving his arms about as if swatting flies. On closer inspection we noticed that there was something on the floor, this something was making people move tables! Jake had done a steaming turd in the middle of the restaurant that had not been caught by his boardies. Oh the shame, thankfully we were so anaesthetised by the wine! We proceeded in dragging him back to the room with poo squishing down his legs….no photos of that holiday experience! It will become a funny little childhood tale that will be told at countless milestone events and to any girl or boy he happens to date in the future! 

Note to self- shut up Mandy!

I have come to the conclusion that I talk too much and not in a good way. When did this happen? When did I become the kind of person who speaks about unnecessary matters to the person at the supermarket checkout? After all, I doubt they want to know why I’ve bought some new socks.

I used to take the piss out of people like me and now on occasion I am so conversationally starved that I will talk to anybody over the age of ten.

Staying at home and watching your children grow is magical but can be quite isolating.

This is why play dates are so important. Play dates are not just about the kids. They are about coffee, salacious gossip and breaking up the day. Admittedly every conversation is peppered with yells of “Jake…No” and “Don’t eat the tanbark.” The children play together perfectly at first, fast- forward ten minutes and they’re pushing each other off the climbing frame. The play date always finishes with tears…. normally me. It is so refreshing to see how similar other children are to yours especially in regards to their behaviour. Some days you think that no other child could possibly be as naughty as yours. The play date allays your fears and allows you to share experiences about the trials and joys of raising children. It is not an easy job; frankly working was a piece of cake to full time mummying. At this point I must applaud single parents because some times I struggle and I have a capable accomplice.

The truth is being at home all day with the kids makes you a little bit crazy. Your brain isn’t being used like it once was and you have to explain everything in a clear manner to your toddler. This then overspills in to your adult world when the most inane details emerge from your mouth. Mental note to self- your three year old needs to know everything, the woman at Coles doesn’t.

Rockabye Baby for f-sake!

We’re off to Masada sleep school in two weeks time and I’m so happy. In fact probably happier than if I was going to Fiji on a luxury all expenses paid holiday. The truth is I am knackered and grumpy all of the time. Poor Jake gets the brunt of it, generally when we are having our nightly stand off about him eating his dinner. I hear the same words coming from my mouth as I did from my mothers' about children starving in Africa.

Sleep is as important as food in this world of ours and while I manage to consume plenty of the latter not much of the former is happening. Whoever made the connection between having a good night’s sleep and sleeping like a baby was joking right?  Not all babies sleep and it is a skill they need to learn. We are supposed to teach them but it isn’t that easy. My beautiful baby seems to think he can suck me dry every ninety minutes throughout the night and yes I have tried patting, rocking, singing etc

At the end of the day you just do what works in order to get some sleep. So i knock him out by putting him on the boob- I swear this child is a milkaholic!

You make excuses for them- “oh it’s their teeth”, “They’ve got a cold”, “They had a bad day on the stock market”. You don’t want to admit there is a problem because maybe that means you are failing at this parenthood malarkey.

Controlled crying is all very well if you don’t mind hearing your child scream every night or if you’ve invested in a good pair of earplugs.  We tried it with Jake but he just used to make himself sick or do a big poo- both were effective in us caving in. I took Jake to Tweddle for a day session, I was really hoping they would see how bad he was and admit us in to their residential program. They didn’t and he was the only child at the end of the day that didn’t sleep. All of the parents sat in a central room whilst their babies’ screamed- it was terrible. Jake was standing by that point and I could hear him rattling the bars of the cot. It was a useless exercise because we really needed to stay the night and they just sent us home regardless. I am hoping this time will be different.