Vive Le Pee-Pee Dance

It is with a huge sigh of relief that I say that my family is on the mend: the cold/virus/ear infection sickness is winding down. My son hasn’t had a temperature since Monday, and the baby’s fever is almost gone as well; we all still have the remnants of considerable congestion and both the kids are taking antibiotics, but I believe the long-awaited end should arrive toward the middle of next week.

My son was the first one to become sick this time. We had been potty training for exactly two weeks when the fever hit. He was really starting to get the hang of it. There was no way I was going to drag my lethargic, feverish child to the bathroom every couple of hours when he was hardly drinking and had stopped eating so I put him in a diaper. He was a little dehydrated and he didn’t urinate often. By the time his fever broke and his appetite returned the baby had a high temperature and need almost constant care.

The baby’s temperature is almost back to normal today so I put “big underwear” on the little man this afternoon. Things are much more manageable today, I thought, it’s time to get back on the potty wagon. I felt that it should be relatively easy to get back on track. Well.

About five minutes after he put his feet into the leg holes and we pulled those pants up, my son decided he needed to poop. He never had gotten the hang of doing this in the toilet. Wipe, wipe, wipe; scrub, scrub, scrub; clean, clean, clean. And time for new underpants. I put the pot back in his toilet and turned around in time to see him squeeze his legs together. “Pee-pee on the floor?” he says. Uh, huh. In about seven minutes we’ve gone through two pair of clean underpants.

I believe it was the intent of this horrible sickness to undermine my potty training progress. It is my most dear and cherished hope that we can recover from this setback without having to start back at the beginning. In any event, I shall endeavor to keep my priorities in line: I would much rather fight with my toddler about the appropriate places to urinate than have to watch him suffer from a double ear infection.