I Am a Better Parent than a Duck

Morning. Day three. The small waste-producing life forms are watching Clifford.

The girl child is frighteningly intelligent. She mastered the use of the Elmo potty instantly and hasn't looked back. She has had ZERO accidents. I think in Brazelton, Sears, [insert parenting guru of choice] jargon, that's called 'ready.' Her attitude, however, is to be feared. She is going to be a terrifying teenager. Yesterday, she sauntered over to the Elmo potty, put her business in there, walked over to me, put her hand on her hip and said, "Fork over the M&M, bee-atch. It's like taking candy from babies around here." Actually, she said, "Want my neminnem. Green one." But, if you could have seen the look on her face, you would excuse the liberal translation.

The boy child, I begin to fear, is the poster tot for 'boys mature slower than girls.' I have to say that because his grandmother told me that I can no longer refer to him as dumb. (Sheesh, I don't do it to his face.) For the love of all that is holy. He has had nothing but accidents. He holds his pee so that he can put it on my floor. We've had one really successful pee-pee in the potty and that is only because I let him watch TV for an hour while he sat on the potty and eventually in his zombified TV-watching coma, he just went.

I have so many questions about him. HELP ME!?

He's usually dry in the morning, but he'll only dribble into the potty. He waits for me to leave the room and then rains torrents of pee-pee on my floor. He throws massive tantrums when he doesn't get an M&M for his tiny dribbles into the potty, but then he promptly puts his forty days and forty nights of ACTUAL pee on my FLOOR. The only way to get him to go so far is to let him watch massive amounts of TV, because he'll sit on the pot ad nauseam as long as he's plugged into PBS.

Arrrrggghh. Should I bail? Is he 'not ready?' Or is he just incredibly stubborn, frighteningly engaged by television and obtusely unaware of his bodily functions. In other words, a man-child. How much TV can I let them watch? Usually, I'm a ninety minute a day girl, split between morning and dinner-prep time, but extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, don't you think?

To top it all off, my mad parenting skillz have been a little stretched thus far. And, come on, it's the third day. The accidents, I can handle. I'm gentle, patient, zen momma for those. It's the tantrums, the fights over the Elmo potty, the rejection of underwear based on color and, my least favorite, the constant touching of parts to which we had no access previously, that has driven me to some awesome Mommy Tantrums involving unfortunate yelling. Sigh. I am definitely not momma of the week this week. It's only Thursday morning.

But, my always-supportive, ever-helpful, dad pointed out that I am a better parent than this.



Thanks, Dad. You are correct. I have not let any of my children fall down a deep hole in the ground in the last week. Way to remind me to look for my positive attributes.

I strive for greatness here in Stacey's World. I am a better parent than a duck,*^ but not by much.

*I have no idea if any ducks were harmed in the making of this photo. I suspect not? In any case, I have harmed no duck in the composition of this post.
^ I know this is an awkward** construction, but I can't fix it. I mean, of course, that I am a better parent than the duck is a parent, not that I am a better parent than I am a duck. Although, I am. I am a better parent than I am a duck. Obviously, I am not a very good duck, lacking feathers, beak, webbed feet and other necessary duck accouterments.
**I just had to look up awkward. It looked weird.***
***Don't you think it's weird that weird is spelled "ei" and not "ie." That totally busts wide open the myth of this rhyme: I before E, except after C and when it sound like A like in sleigh. Where does WEIRD fit into that equation? Nowhere.

Postscript. After over an hour of TV watching, Gee peed his torrential pee-pee while sitting on the potty (YAY!), straight up into the air and all over my floor (BOO!). Damn you, potty gods!(Shakes fist at sky. Then, thinks better of her insolence, hunches and kowtows.) Just kidding. I surrender, oh great gods of the potty. I am your humble servant. Tell me how to please you. I am yours to command.