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| Doesn't this LOOK Fun? |
I know someday I will miss how small you are right now. I will miss cleaning you. Helping you with the most intimate of human functions. Saving you from sitting in your own warm mess, and changing you so you're fresh like a spring daisy. I'll miss your chubby little toddler elbows. I'll wish I still had the power to solve your worst fears by simply letting you curl up in my lap. I'll wish I could again feel your little arms cling to me when you're too tired to walk.
But today I just wish for one thing: that you'd experience the wonderful freedom of diaper-free living.
Ok, really I wish that I didn't have to scrub caked-on smashed poop off your ass one more time.
I wish I could, without cringing, hear you make the daily announcement that you need to go poop. You clumsily shut the playroom door behind you and creep to a corner, squatting to poop in your pants while you study a book. I ask you "Do you want to try the potty this time?" and you answer, "No thank you." Like you were responding to an offer for more potatoes. I try demanding you to do your business in the bathroom. You cry and carry on like I've just threatened a beating.
I've tried bargaining with you. "No more new toys until you poop on the potty." And after that doesn't work..."Starting today, you'll start LOSING toys you own until you decide to poop on the potty." Nothing phases you. My announcements are met with sighs. Whimpers. And then indifference. Even at 3 1/2 (as if diaper rights expire at that magic age), you clearly aren't ready.
But you are like this with all things. Walking. You decided to, and you were nearly running within a day. Sleeping--you chose when to go all night, and you've rarely woken since (THANK YOU!!). So maybe you'll decide one day to don a pair of underwear, and we'll be done. I'll wonder what all the fuss was about.
Until then, I'm impatiently waiting, my son. I'm trying not to do or say anything irreparable. I'm trying to remember you will not (hopefully) be wearing diapers in high school. I'm trying to remember you are a perfect little boy and this is simply part of growing up.
And like all poops, this too shall pass.
I love you and hope I have not already forever ruined for you the wonderful experience of pooping.
Love, Mommy
