I’ve been AWOL for a while… and for anyone who actually reads my stuff with any regularity, I apologize. At some point in the next week or two, when I muster the courage and the right words, I will explain exactly why I have been neglectful. But for now, I shall stick to some happier fare.
Last time I posted, my wife and I were working with a 25-day potty training deadline. We had to get the task completed before Pea started pre-Casa, which as it turns out, was today.
I am pleased to report that we pulled it off (pun intended). We took some fairly standard advice from all of you, and decided to immediately move her to panties and skip the pull-up method.
Pea had two accidents on Day 1, another on Day 2, and it has been clear sailing ever since (touch wood). She is now going fairly long stretches without peeing, and on most nights, she stays dry (in a night-time pull-up… we aren’t masochists after all) or wakes up and asks to go pee. It’s been a dream… one which doesn’t involve a diaper bag!
As it turns out, potty-training Pea was a walk in a marshmallow-covered park, where the trees are made of lollypops and the grass is made of Bridge Mixture. The real challenge, was dropping her off for her first day of school this morning.
I will simply say this: real men don’t cry. They simply suppress their emotions to avoid balling in front of the faculty at his daughter’s new school. Real men also avoid eating breakfast on emotionally questionable days to ensure they don’t vomit in their car on the way to school.
In other words, dropping Pea off for her first day of school was HARD! We arrived at the school, brought her to her class, said goodbye and listened to her cry, nay, wail, while we settled a few items with the school administrator.
Fortunately, Pea seems to have taken to school as easily and quickly as she took to potty training. When we arrived to pick her up, she didn’t want to leave. She says she can’t wait to go back tomorrow. She seemed legitimately happy, which certainly lightened my heart.
Oh, and when I asked her if she made any friends, she named Joshua… a little boy who rubbed her back when she was crying. Joshua is good people.
So, that’s that. I’m through all of parentings most difficult challenges, for nothing can be worse that the worry that came with a kid’s first day of school. Right?
Yay for you, Shawn! And double-yay for Pea!! I’m happy it went so easily… and if she regresses in any way, that too shall pass (but she probably won’t!)
Indeed, the drop-off part can be a real tear-jerker for everyone. I’m glad she’s got good peeps like Joshua… YAY!!
Congratulations on entering the next stage of parenting! Toilet training when a child is ready, which Pea obviously was, is simple. I tried to force the issue with my first and it was not so much fun. Glad it went well!
Transition and change are always hard, even when your kids get older. Dropping my son off at 2 weeks of overnight camp for the first time had me teary eyed and my stomach in anxious knots. Especially when 1.5 weeks went by and I hadn’t heard a word from him!
Glad this hurdle is over. Pea is getting to be such a big girl!
Yay for Pea! (And for you!) My husband had to do the drop-off the first day of school because I would have not have been able to make any intelligible noises between sobs. You, sir, are a rock star.
Congrats Shawn! You’ve made it through the most difficult part of parenting (that was dripping with sarcasm, btw)
Seriously though – congrats! It’s a HUGE milestone. They both are – no more diapers and preschool. Yay for Pea!
Just wait til her first day of kindergarten at the big school…
Congrats on the potty training! I bow to you! And it is so hard for the drop off. I cry with each of Will’s new classes…but he loves them all. I’m sure Pea will be kickass. Glad that you survived….
Thanks for sharing ! we too have been through what you’ve lived with Potty training and hte first day – but for us it was daycare…and luckily our kids are bigger than we think and overcome these life stages! Congrats to you guys for living through the last few weeks! now the hard part comes when she cries when she has to go home 🙂