Pull-up-aholic Rehab

Pumpkin and I were playing play-doh yesterday morning until she pushed herself up off her chair and asked me if her pants felt wet. Welcome to the introduction of: Pumpkin Pees Her Pants 4.2. Instead of telling me outright that she peed them, it has since evolved into a rousing game of Clue. Nowadays I have to guess what made a surface wet: Was it Ms. Sweaty Butt in the Dining Room with the Occasionally Over Active Bladder?

I padded my hand around. Nope, it feels only a little damp from sitting on a plastic seat cover for 20 minutes straight while conjuring up alien images in the play-doh. About five minutes later, she propositioned me again asking me to determine the source of the moisture. Clearly, I didn't rise to the bait.

By the third time, I knew her guilt-laden expression meant I would spend the next 20-30 minutes cleaning up something. I asked her if she peed in her pants.
"No."
"Are you sure, Pumpkin?"
"No."
(Insert trepidation here.) "Did you pee in your pants a tiny bit and forget to tell me you had to go because you wanted to play some more with your play-doh? It's OK if you did, you can tell Mommy. Accidents happen."
Slowly, she nodded. Crap.

Honestly, I thought we moved beyond the potty training deal, but it creeps back for a few weeks at a time as though the training didn't fully take. In addition to that, Pumpkin still has yet to grasp the purpose of toilet paper. She appears fully aware that it doesn't serve as floor "woobie" material nor as ribbon for twirling practice in the dire hopes that her wild armed skill might lead her to the 2020 Olympic rhythmic gymnastics competition.

Most regrettably of all, Pumpkin doesn't understand she needs to wipe where the action takes place. Instead, it's her back or beneath her belly button that get a swipe of cotton 2-ply -headed in the right direction, just not quite there yet.

Pumpkin's effort to approximate the wiping has also landed us in another failed attempt of Western culture's take on Indian practices like a typical American, without respect or reverence for the appropriate hand for the job: lucky lefty. This tragic cultural misconception manifested itself when I found her backside painted with her own creation like a bloody Picasso only after discovering a little something beneath the fingernails of her left and right hands. Ew, ew, EW! One can only hope they didn't approach the maxillofacial region, but I will never know because it became a "Don't ask, don't tell" situation upon discovery. At that point in time, I avoided further questions regarding the goings on of her human canvas experimentation to keep from tossing my cookies.

And trust me, I fully understand a gal's need to have a moment of Zen during the busyness of the daily routine, I just didn't realize it began at the ripe old age of 4. Nowadays, Pumpkin can go upstairs, climb atop stool, inch around 180 degrees and do her business without me (except assisting the wipe). She does it by herself nearly every day as expected, except every day when I go upstairs after the, "I pooooooooooped!" holler, I find the Princess on her throne, lights off. I half expect her to have legs crossed up there one day saying ohms.

I'll ask her if she needs a moment, and sometimes she'll answer, "No, I fink I'm ready to get down now," but other times I hear, "Yeah," which I willingly oblige by giving her some alone time. When I peek back into the dark bathroom after a minute or two, I see a pondering face lost in consideration of all the trials 4 year old's face: "What color construction paper should I use? Why do I have to eat my carrots? Time outs are so boring... Why can't Mommy clean up my toys all by herself?"

Sometimes these moments of Zen evolve into complex scenes from her imagination. I've found her battling a brachiosaurus as her right arm with a T-Rex as her left for a good five minutes before I interrupt. This transition time not only gave Pumpkin some space to be herself, but also helped me identify her official abandonment of conventional toys in favor of her imagination.

That doesn't mean I won't attempt to affordably buy things from Santa's list this year, but I wonder what staying power a new toy will have when she already imagines a host of baby dinos needing to be fed while on the potty or when Pumpkin prefers flying across the house with her imaginary exotic bugs, toys still put away in her playroom.

Personally, I've begun to fully embrace the figments of my imagination these days as well -not a signal of developmental progression for the growing brain, but rather mental digression towards inevitable senility.

I imagine a sparkling kitchen with Toll House cookies in the oven, nails that stay polished to perfection even after scrubbing the tub, and a 5 o'clock margarita with a wedge of lime, salt around the rim and my name written all over it. I imagine my lower mommy tummy smooth as a frozen lake, just like my younger days of old, along with elusive firm underarms finally displaying the years of child carrying and laundry lifting I've endured.

See how it works is: every time a baby's born, a mommy gets her wings...flying squirrel "wings" of underarm flesh, that is. The upside of the downward sag -the wings can offer a marginally cool breeze from waving, "Hello," on a hot summer day. Greeting people now that I'm a mommy, however, I typically abide by the almighty Queen of England wave with only forearm/wrist movement -below the hat, above the pearls of course.

The turning point for my admission that potty training was still in effect came just a few weeks ago. I carried some toys up to the playroom while Pumpkin readied herself for potty time once again. Everything went swimmingly until I heard the classic call of the wild: "Mommy, come quick!"
"What's that, Pumpkin?"
"It rolled out like a bouncy ball. Can I play with it?"

Even at four, uncertainty still lies in contemplating a round of tossing feces around? When does the official recognition that perhaps I've failed at certain points of the maternal instinct arrive?

Desperately, I pray my days of sub-par motherhood are numbered based on my excessive history of mommy failures. For example, I have permitted Pumpkin to style her own hair (all 18 thick, curly inches of it) and allowed Sean to comb it out. I have publicly used four letter words while mopping up my laundry room flooded by an inconspicuous crack in the drip pan.

I have forgotten to suds down my child after playtime in the tub and blankly stared in her direction while she happily ate toe jam for dessert. I've even draped a towel over the accident in Mommy's bed just to get a couple more hours of sleep and awoke, undisturbed, to find the towel by my feet. And to perpetuate my desperation for sleep, instead of showering off, I simply changed my pants and socks.

These kinds of admissions have benefits, however. My obvious shortcomings create opportunities to purposefully adjust my expectations. For instance, my old mantra, "She can't start kindergarten in diapers," has switched to, "She won't graduate high school in pull-ups, Lord willing."

Maybe my precarious situation resulted from Pumpkin's realization that anything goes since Mommy has 30 different types of cleaners to remove stains from the carpet, couch, drywall, grout, whathaveyou. Maybe I expected less from Pumpkin when I first believed it easier to cram a camel through the eye of a needle than it was to allow her to roam free, sans pull-up. Maybe the bouts of random accidents will grow fewer and further between if I can finally let go and let pee if need be.