News From the Trenches...

I'm still not ready to say the "less than one day" method worked. I think it may have, but that feels way to confident, almost braggy to acknowledge it. And any girl who survived sixth grade knows that bragging will screw you in a myriad of ways, not the least of which is that it will totally undo whatever feat you are bragging about. Therefore, I am not going to say that the method worked. I am going to say, that as of right now (10:30 a.m.), my daughter has had zero accidents today and has taken her self to the potty three times (that's called self-initiation in 1970s male-psycho speak).

This may sound like great news, but really its not. Because this whole process has catapulted me into a state of stress that can only be compared to the hyper-awareness a soldier must feel during down-time in the (you guessed it) trenches. If you have ever spent time with a child in their first few days, or months, or let's face it first year, in underwear, you know exactly what I mean. I can not relax, I can not let my guard down. I can not stop my head from snapping sideways to check for sudden pee deposits. I see shit everywhere I look. I sense wetness at all times. When I close my eyes at night, I wonder if she is dry. I never reached deep sleep last night for fear that my child would notice she had peed in her pull-up and not like the feeling (granted, that was crazy, but you can't help crazy when you're in the trenches). This hyper-vigilante state must be what Bush had in mind when he created the color coded alert system after 9/11. Except that I've gone beyond red, I'm at a deep, deep magenta.

And suddenly, I can remember exactly why potty training sucks. Its not the pee on the family room rug, or the living room couch, or on my own socks for that matter. Its the constant fear that there could be pee anywhere at any minute. And the delusion that I can somehow, if I try hard enough control that pee. And its not the living with this fear for a a day or even a couple of weeks that breaks you down. Its the living with it for months on end and just when you finally say screw it, I don't need to be afraid anymore, I don't need the extra pair of underwear in my purse and the potty seat in the trunk of my car, finding a warm turd on your foot. Kind of like when they would be having a big old barbecue on China Beach and then theViet Cong would come screaming out of the jungle.