Monday 21 May 2012

Toilet Trauma

Yeah, so... toilet training..this is fun...

If your idea of fun is sitting on the floor of your bathroom for hours on end with Husband chanting "DO A POO" at Boy who is situated on the loo like Prince Poo.

Having put off toilet training for quite a while with, quite honestly an amazing selection of excuses, I was really surprised Boy took to it so quickly. I was however, under the impression that it was going to be a fairly traumatic experience for all those involved, and even some who weren't. I was correct.

Still, 3 weeks on I am still trying to bribe Boy with multiple 'treats' to do a big poo on the toilet. He is still refusing my ingenious tactics in favour of shitting in his nappy..normally first thing in the morning.

This leads to the majority of my mornings beginning with the following sentence,
 "Mummy, I have done a poo in my nappy..and it has leaked.."
 Usually I have smelt the offender before he entered my room. I'd challenge anyone to 'start the day right' when the first thing you have to do is scrape poo of a childs back, his bed, his toys, the bedding, the carpet..and YOUR hands. BEFORE your morning coffee.

So far my favourite bribe has to be this one..

"Babe, if you do a really big poo, we will take a photo of it and send it to your Favourite Uncle."
"Yes Mummy, he will love that!"
Favourite Uncle is still waiting for his photo of Boys toilet christening.

Toilet training is not that bad, but I was really disappointed to discover that there is a price to pay for giving up nappies. Although financially better off, my nerves are shot. I can honestly say that some of the most frightening moments have been the result of the following words..
"Mummy theres a wee wee coming."
Its not the words themselves that shake me to the core its the usually highly inappropriate situation we are in.
Some examples;

In the changing rooms of a swimming pool..when I am completely naked. This resulted in me holding Boy over the nearest drain and telling him that this is not really how you go toilet.

From the back of the car, when I'm in the fast lane of the motorway, in heavy traffic, miles from an exit.  "Too late Mummy.. wee wee in my pants"
Bugger.

This next one is from a good friend of mine who's daughter is the same age as Boy and is his "Best Friend". My friend locked herself out of the house and whilst waiting for her husband to come from work and let her in, her daughter announced that she needed a poo 'In that way they do when you KNOW they are not kidding'. So she had to knock on a neighbours door to ask. Simple you would think but no. Toddlers love to announce their bowel movements to anyone and everyone so my friend knew she would have to plan what she said carefully for fear of her daughter shouting to her elderly neighbour that she was HAVING A POO! Crisis averted.

At the Park. Where of course, there are no toilets. This one is simple..
"Just wee against the tree darlin'"
This always results in looks of disgust from passers by. To remedy this I find shouting "OH YOU'D RATHER MY CHILD WEED IN HIS PANTS AND BECAME SELF CONSCIOUS OF HIS ABILITIES TO URINATE WOULD YOU?? TOSSER!" Then by the time you have said this the person has run away in fear, your child has stopped weeing and you feel strangely calm.

Wednesday 2 May 2012

Child Crufts

I went to a toddler group with a friend of mine today. I have a love hate relationship with toddler groups. I go because I feel I have to, that in some way I am letting Boy down if I don't attend them and they are basically mornings of organised chaos.

Whenever you have large groups of children there is inevitably fighting, tears, tantrums and Mumbiches.
 A year ago I had to stop going to toddler groups as they were bad for my health. Boy would just go around hitting other children and stealing toys and shouting at me until I snapped and we left. Usually I would shove him into the car and cry my eyes out while telling him that if he kept this up he would never have friends. What I didn't add was that neither would I.

Toddler groups are a child Crufts, an opportunity to display your child and most importantly your parenting skills. I don't buy that shit. It has taken me a long time and some serious talking to's from my closest friend, to realise that Boy is normal, he's not a bad kid and I am NOT the worlds worst mother. Toddler groups did not aid my discovery. There is a very disturbing and unspoken underbelly of the Mothering World and in this post I am going to expose it for what it is.. a load of women bitching while their kids tear each others hair out.

Mums are split into different groups..

The Slummy Mummies. These are the women (normally with a new baby and a toddler) These poor women come to toddler groups to keep the older child occupied so they can feed the newborn in relative safety. They are most distinguishable by the fact they are still wearing maternity clothes 2 months after the birth. They also look like they are about to break if so much as a dirty nappy is pointed their way.
 I mostly feel for these Mums but.. and its a big but.. They have a really annoying habit of not watching their toddler properly. This tends to result in someone else having to intervene when they go to stick play dough up their nose or steal another child's treasured piece of crap toy. The slummy Mummies are also at the bottom of the food chain which makes them easy prey for the MumBiches.

The Mumbiches. I do not like the Mumbiches. In fact I would go as far to say that they are the major cause of stress to other mums (besides obviously our own kids) These women come in a suprising form. They are normally the older mums, which I can only assume gives them the impression that they are somehow better and more knowledgeable than everyone else. Being a fairly young Mum with a rather hectic and passionate Boy I have been on the receiving end of some serious Mumbitching.

 They are cliquey and they are rude and they are obvious. They hang around in packs waiting for the prey to creep past so they can devour them piece by piece in  a very unsubtle manner. These women take centre stage at every special event as they view it as an opportunity to publicly display their talents. The rest of us just sit there absorbing the feeling of inadequacy and letting it seep deep into our sub conscious where it will wake us at 4am questioning our ability as a mother.

The Yummy Mummies. I have no problem with Yummy Mummies per say.. they can be a little bitchy but they are normally too busy talking designer clothes to talk about anyone else. These women are easily recognised as their boys have Ralph Lauren t-shirts and hair gel and their girls have the most inappropriate clothes on (usually some frilly dress, patent shoes and a bow) My friend once told me that she overheard a group of yummy mummies talking about where they get their bows made!! That's right, they don't just buy them.. they commission them to match their outfits! They are also easily recognisable by their massive over use of leopard print and heels so high I am genuinely concerned a baby on the floor will be impaled by one false move. These women also do not watch their kids.. they serve mostly as an accessory, we come back to the kids Crufts.

The Organic Mummies. The mums who have bought their organic snacks in the BPA free containers. These women harm no one directly. That is because they are too busy forcing their child to eat their flavour free oat snacks instead of the obligatory digestive which is normally offered at toddler groups.

This leads me to the final group.. except its not really a group. Basically whats left is the fodder. This is the category I fall in to. We are the women who are fully aware of whats going on, we are aware of the bullshit and observe it with a smug grin. Occasionally we chat to each other and feel better for it. We are honest, we tell our kids off and we accept that some bad behaviour from our kids is normal. You don't see us often (we only attend when desperate) and we normally leave before the singing commences (Mumbiches tend to lead the singing)

We spot the victims of the Mumbiches and we help to repair the damage, usually by sharing all our own inadequacies. Today I followed a Mum into the toilets as my friend had said that she was crying. The Mum was crying because her son had been going around all morning hitting other kids because he wanted their toys. Boy was one of them and I remembered her apologising to me for it looking like she was horrified, so I decided to do some repair work. Turns out she had smacked his hand and felt like The Worlds Worst Mum and how everyone must judge her now. I said no, if any of those women say that they have NEVER smacked thier child then they are a fucking liar! I told her that sharing is hard to teach and harder for them to learn and that everyone has days like this. Next week it will be someone elses turn. She said thank you and walked out feeling slightly better.

I will never understand why we are not united. It should be us against the children not us against each other. Being a parent is hard enough without the politics that come with it. Right from when we are pregnant we have an idea of the sort of Mother we want to be, a 'natural' mum, but what the fuck is a natural mum?? Yes I am a mum but that does not mean that anything less than perfect is unacceptable.

I once witnessed a ridiculous scene when out with a friend for lunch, A child bit another child.. the most dreaded of incidents! There was silence..total silence.. until the little girl started screaming. Her mum scooped her up throwing daggers at the the biter, who's mother was storming across the resturant with a face like thunder. She snapped him up and dragged him back to the table where she gave him the bollocking of a lifetime. The room was divided into the parents who's kids have bitten and those whose haven't...yet. Those with kids who have (yes, I am one of them) felt more sorry for the Mum of the biter. Words cannot describe how you feel when your child bites another but I think the desperation is proven by what the Mum said to the other Mum.
"I'm so sorry, she can bite him back if she wants to...?"
The other Mum looked appalled and spent the next hour talking very loudly about the other family and talking to other random people about it. My heart went out to biter Mum. Needless to say she left, and I would put money on her sitting in the car and crying for at least an hour.

In no way am I saying that biting is acceptable I'm just saying that we are all in this together, forgiveness compassion and empathy are free..easy and they make the difference between feeling like The Worlds Worst Mother and a normal Mum.