Weaning, stretching and other types of training

It's not easy, and I'm not going to lie to you. It's ugly here. The 2 year old insists on taking off her diaper. Okay, I say, then it's time to potty train. Which, in my opinion, goes hand in hand with weaning. It just seems like a logical break. You are two, you are old enough to take off and put on pants, you are old enough to say, 'baby all done', and 'I want to nurse, other side', you are old enough to be done. I know there are die hard la leche gals who say, don't ask, don't refuse . . . but this child will continue to nurse until I refuse. Especially since she is watching baby brother continue.

So all day the first day she asked, and all day I said no, that I would nurse her at bedtime. And there was sadness in the land each time I said no. But then, guess what? At bedtime she curled up in my arms while I read the bedtime story (Missionary Stories with the Millers, from Sonlight Core 1) and DID NOT ASK TO NURSE. She never cuddles without nursing!

She has nursed in the morning and at bedtime for the last 2 days (partly for my comfort) but is accepting the change.

Potty training is not going well, I think. But that's partly my fault. The best way I know of to potty train is cold turkey, naked, and staying at home. Especially for a little fart like her - she knows when she has pooped and has peed, but not when she is pooping or peeing, let alone when she is about to poop or pee. And they figure it out best naked.

My problem is that I didn't really want to start until after the last day of soccer, which is tomorrow. (Because I know from experience that trying to take a little one all the way to the bathroom, which, by some international law of soccer MUST be at least a quarter mile away, before they have done something they don't even know they have to do yet is a virtual impossibility and can dampen the hopes of the most experienced potty trainers.) But she insists on taking the diaper off. So we're starting.

My other problem is that I sometimes leave the house or leave that child in the care of her siblings or father, who, if frustrated, would put a diaper on a five-year-old if he thought she might have an accident while in his care.

So I have not been able to fully commit to the cold-turkey-naked-stay-at-home plan. As a result, she knows nothing except that when she sits on the pot we give her chocolate chips and that after she sits for a random amount of time, she should use tissue which she calls a towel to wipe somewhere below her belly button and drop the tissue in the toilet and flush.

My second daughter is in a delightful pre-teen life phase. Being a brilliant and experienced mother of a dozen, I had the phenomenal idea of having her take on two really difficult things at the same time. She has started lessons on her instrument (on a limited basis because it is expensive) and has had to learn and do stretches on orders from her P.T., which stands for physical terrorist, for the purpose of increasing/maintaining the stretchiness of her Achilles tendons (recently acquired by wearing a series of casts, which we do not wish to repeat - all because of being a toe-walker).

I'm basically spending most of my days torturing her. In the process of dealing with all that horror, 5 different sets of stretches, 2 sets of orthotics (day and night), and at least a half an hour of being forced to play scales and riffs over and over, I have learned that her work ethic is less zealous than I had assumed. This calls into question many other assumptions about her education. At the same time, her motivation to do all those other things I'm assuming she's doing well has gone down to low.

So we are in training. We are training to comfort without nursing, training to not walk on our tip toes, training to put our pee and poo in the pot, training to play mixolydian and phrygian scales. And I am on day 3 (is it only 3?) of reading my Bible each day. The stretching is pervasive.

Stretching and training and relearning something you've done wrong all your life is hard. I tried on swimming suits last night. The one I wore last season was pre-pregnancy, 38 or so lbs less. Not gonna work this time. I walked into the dressing room, clothes still on, and nearly gasped. I thought and almost said to my daughter, 'you let me leave the house like this?' All those mirrors provided a vision of pure agony. Egads. I've never been so mortified by my own reflection. Grotesque.

But I'm not making another vow right now. I have made a commitment to read the Bible every day. I hope that washing my spirit with the Word will flow into healthier habits, that I will take care of the body God made for me by drinking more water, by eating more veggies, by eating only what I need because my spirit is stronger and healthier for the time spent with my Maker. But my focus and hope is set in Him, not in making changes myself. As desperately as I want to look different than I do, I will set my heart and fix my gaze on a higher prize.

Stretching is painful. Sometimes we have to be made to do it. Weaning ourselves off of something we gain comfort from is difficult. Sometimes we have to be forced to do it. Learning to walk and live differently is difficult. Sometimes we have to be forced to do it. All discipline seems unpleasant for the moment. But afterward it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace.