Big Mistake!

After reading this, you'll know it's been quite a while since I've taken care of a 3-year-old. I've certainly forgotten the cardinal rule of child care pertaining to toddlers - never leave them unwatched for even a second!

No, Maya didn't do anything that was really dangerous to herself or the household, but it did disrupt me for a good bit.

We've been trying for well over a year here to work with her on a very important issue but I think it is probably more important to those of us here who are the "caretakers" than it is to her. Potty Training!

Yeah, that dreadful part of dealing with little ones, you know. And, considering the difficulties I had 30 plus years ago with my son, I should be more attentive to this, but today, I screwed up.

The potty chair Mandy bought about two years ago -in anticipation of this part of child-rearing - is one that doesn't have a strap of any type on it. Which, for Miss Maya, is a bad thing because getting her to sit still in one spot for even a minute, it next to impossible. Add to that, she has absolutely no interest whatsoever in this potty training thing and well, you can see this is a problem area.

Today, I hit on the idea of finding a way to keep her seated and allowing her to work on the business at hand. I took a belt from her sister, Kate, (age 15) and wound it through the handles of the potty chair, across Maya's legs and lap and buckled it in the back. No danger there to her and it was a good, effective way for me to keep her where I wanted her. I had her confined to the potty chair for almost three hours solid that way.

Now, to some, that may sound like torture, but she was perfectly content to sit there like that, in front of the tv watching the country music channel and the videos on there. And, as long as she wasn't objecting, neither was I and I decided I'd see if somewhere along the way, she would be compelled to do something.

And yes, she did! And yes, I was ecstatic! Almost jumping for joy, really. My gosh, she had finally actually whizzed in there for old grammy! I was praising her, clapping my hands, hollering Yay, yay and she was all smiles too at getting so much praise.

So where did I go wrong?

Well, her mother had gone into town to pick up some things we needed while I was cooking supper and I decided, in my infinite wisdom here, to put the potty chair, still containing this wonderful content, by my computer desk so when Mandy got back home, I could show her what a good little girl her daughter had been for me. And, after placing it there, I went back out to the kitchen to finish making my home-made noodle/dumplings for the ham & bean potpie I have been making all afternoon here.

Listening to Christmas music in the kitchen, rolling out the dough, happy as a lark, I was until I realized it was really quiet in the living room. And yes, I know that is a very bad sign with a toddler on the loose. And yes, it was a not-to-nice thing I discovered that Maya had done too.

There, spread across a good portion of the living room floor was this nice big old wet spot, the little green pot insert from the potty chair sitting right beside it and Miss Maya, who was seated beside this spreading liquid and merrily (but quietly) spreading it around, almost as if she were scrubbing the living room floor with it.

You can bet your bottom dollar, I'll not make that mistake again!