Bear With Me - Thinking Out Loud In Progress

Is it a bad thing that Sweet Pea hums the tune to the theme song for "Daria?" Heh... At least she doesn't sing the words ("You're standing on my neck!").

Yesterday we had a freaky day. It was, like, *bright* outside. For once Sweet Pea didn't have to ask when she woke up, "Mama, is it morning?" There was this big huge shining thing in the sky that was hard to look at, and the streets and sidewalks were dry all day, and it was HOT out! I don't know what that big bright hot thing in the sky was, but Sweet Pea and I took advantage of there being no rain and spent a good part of the day in the back yard. Sweet Pea even decided it was time to have her first naked backyard play day. We had a really good time, though I got super tired.

Now on the subject of potty training - I keep asking myself why I am harboring some stress about this. What is the big deal? Yes, it was a huge bummer when Sweet Pea seemed like she was ready to be finished potty training and then completely reverted. But she's not even 3 yet, and everything I'm reading says that she's still young enough to not be emotionally ready. At some point she WILL decide it's time, and start using her potty again/all the time. Just because she has friends very close to her age who are already trained doesn't mean anything. They're ready. She's not. That's okay.

I really think it's my mom in my head that's causing the thoughts that cause the stress that I keep noticing here and there. Last time she visited she told me that shortly after the baby's born, she thinks I'll be forcing Sweet Pea to potty train. She thinks I should be forcing Sweet Pea right now so she'll be done before the baby's born. She SO doesn't get Slipshod's and my non-forcing parenting style. I don't understand the old way of thinking (I guess that's not accurate, it's just a different way of thinking. I associate it with older generations, but there are plenty of people in my generation who feel the way my mom does, and parent the way she did). What on Earth is wrong with letting things take their natural course? Labor, for example, when there's not an emergent reason to interfere. But I digress.

However, in the mean time, until Sweet Pea DOES potty train for real... I've been trying to decide what to do about diapers. I stopped making Sweet Pea lie down for diaper changes when I felt that she, the baby, and I were probably all in danger from her flailing limbs. So now she has all her diaper changes standing up, and I don't chase her around anymore - she has to come stand in front of me for the change. Most often she's pretty good about that, if she's not in the middle of playing with friends or running around for some other reason when I decide it's diaper change time. However - it is extremely difficult to put fresh cotton diapers on her while she is standing. I've also been putting double cotton diapers on her because the changes are so difficult that I do them less often. Probably not the best policy, but dammit, I'm 33 weeks pregnant and as such I'm huge, constantly exhausted, and I'm just doing the best I can.

I put disposable diapers on Sweet Pea at night because even though she has been dry in the mornings for almost a year now, she has often peed in her diaper by the time I can drag my sorry ass out of bed. And she pees a lot in the morning. So even with a double cotton diaper, she sometimes leaks on the bed (or my lap, or whatever). So, we've got disposables in the house. They're looking more and more tempting, and coming into daytime use as well, due to how much easier they are to change. I feel guilty about this, but at the same time I've got to take care of myself however I can. I also don't want to go to disposables from cotton because she can't feel her pee so much in the disposables, and taking a step backward from potty training seems completely dumb at this point in time.

But, Sweet Pea has demonstrated that since she is simply not interested in potty training right now, she absolutely DOES NOT CARE if her diaper is wet or poopy or how much of either - even if it's cotton and she can totally feel it.

I think I have found the solution. I don't want to stop our diaper service since we're going to start getting newborn diapers very soon (yes, I'm continuing cotton diapers with the baby - it will be a while before she can wiggle enough to make diaper changes miserable - plus, I won't be pregnant when she's that wiggly, so I'll be better able to deal with things!), but I think that due to the above described changing difficulties I'm finished with cotton for Sweet Pea. Yesterday it finally occurred to me that I had heard or read somewhere that I could get cotton AND/OR disposables delivered by our diaper service. I looked on their website and they do deliver Tushies brand disposables. They are very against disposables, but apparently feel that if their customers insist on using a mix or want disposables delivered, they should offer the best thing they can find. So Tushies are filled with cotton mixed with non-chlorinated wood pulp and there is no gel, and they're free of most, if not all, of the chemicals that regular disposables have. Since they are not gel diapers, the kid can still feel the wetness, so apparently you get the ease of disposables with the feel of a cotton diaper. They actually recommend them for potty training, I suppose for that reason.

So, here we go. Slipshod says I've stuck with cotton diapers for a much longer time than he thinks most people do. I thought that most people who chose cotton stuck with it all the way through, but he's not so sure. I have no idea and don't care enough to do a study. Anyway, it's been more than two and a half years of mostly cotton diapers, and while I'm worried about the possibility of already having undone (by using lots of disposables recently) all the good I felt I did by diapering with cotton (though the Queen and I had a discussion about this a while back and a friend of hers did an environmental impact study that concluded that using each kind is a tradeoff - water & detergent usage vs. chemical production and deforestation), I think it's time for me to do something that works better for ME. Being this pregnant, and soon having a newborn, there are enough difficulties to deal with. Tushies, here I come!

In other news - more rain today. What about poor Colorado and New Mexico? Did somebody miss the memo? We've broken early 1900s California rainfall records! We've got enough to get us through the summer, thank you - rain, move on! Go where they're used to getting more of you!