I’ve never had a bigger fight with someone than last weekend when my two year old refused to take a nap. A fight with someone? Like, did I fight with my husband over the nap refusal, or did I actually have a kind-of screaming match with my toddler? Yes.
“45 minutes into this, he’s crying, I’m crying, and nobody has had a damn nap, or pooped on the potty.”
See, the thing is, not only does he nap for three hours each day, but on weekends I nap for three hours, too. Recently, we have been in potty-training HELL; trying to be patient while our toddler tries to figure-out how to hold his pee long enough to make it to the toilet and, once there, expel the contents of his bladder all at once so we don’t have to repeat the process 6 times over an hour. On top of that, he has pooped in the potty twice and received two Smarties candies each time as a reward. So now he squeezes, stands up to check, sits down to squeeze, stands up to check, and repeatedly says, “two Smarties for poo poo in potty?”
So last weekend, we had lunch and then it was time for nap. But first, pee and poop in the potty. Seven fucking times. We tried, he peed. Tried again, peed more. Repeated this every 5 minutes until he was yelling we me, “I have to poopoo in the potty! TWO SMARTIES!!!” And I knew he didn’t really have to go poop, but just wanted candy. However, what if he did have to poop and I am the horrible mom who is ignoring him while he is trying to learn? It pretty much feels impossible to know.
45 minutes into this, he’s crying, I’m crying, and nobody has had a damn nap, or pooped on the potty. I finally put him back in his crib and yelled, “I can’t do this! Go to sleep! Mommy needs to sleep! Just poop in your diaper! Ahhhhhhh!” and stormed out of the room. My husband was sitting calmly on the stairs, watching the entire thing on the monitor and, I am pretty sure, laughing. I shot daggers from my eyes, slammed my bedroom door and proceeded to take a two hour nap after crying myself to sleep.
Turns out, the kid fell asleep within about 3 minutes of me leaving, and my husband enjoyed two peaceful hours of catching-up on his Tevo and relaxing on the couch. When I woke up, my son was awake too and he came up to me and said, “I love you, Mama. Two Smarties?” And I gave him two Smarties.
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