Pokey Maddie Maye

Madeline is slow. The reasons are varied, and I'm trying to figure it out. But when push comes to shove, Madeline Maye is our Pokey Puppy.

Maddie probably isn't really slow. It is just that I have been broken in as a mother by Wild-Jack-ATTACK. And he is nothing but fast. He is so independent and just knows things, that I've gotten lazy about cuing him to do a lot of things. This is a good thing for me. However it hasn't been a good thing for Maddie. She needs a little more attention and a few more reminders and prompts to do things, and a substantial amount of time to do them in.

This may be TMI, but it really is the best way to describe how she is.

Madeline has recently decided to forgo diapers and use underwear instead. This is GREAT. John and I as parents have felt that kids will make this transition when ready and if pushed too early or too much they will delay the transition even longer. So we waited. And we waited. She gave signs, would try for a day or two and then refuse. We didn't push. But then the real thing came. She was READY, the stars were aligned and she did, in fact, need a little pushing. Pushing might be too strong, encouragement rather, to continue making the transition to underwear. "No pee-pee on Hello Kitty" was our phrase of the day, for several days. I still cannot even read that sentence with out laughing out loud. She did great. And there was a bonus: she stayed dry at night, right off the bat (as a measuring stick, Jack just started staying dry at night several months ago). So this was great. Now comes in the slow part.

Madeline likes privacy. A word that she knows from when others need bathroom privacy. She likes to ask for your help to get ready to go and then quickly demands her privacy and points you to the living room to wait her next command. This next command doesn't come, ever. Now there are times when privacy and taking your time in the bathroom is a-okay with me. AT HOME.

This doesn't work well when you have a 2-year old in a stall with you and a 9-month old, and you are trying to go quickly before the 9-month old crawls out of the stall, because that is hilarious. All the while trying to keep an ear on the 4-year old who must go alone in his own stall and tends to make friends with whomever he comes across. Then the 2-year old starts playing with the door lock, you wrap it up and grab the 9-month old who is 3/4 out of the stall (crawling on the super-clean bathroom floor). Once the 2-year old is safely on the pot she tries to demand her privacy and begin the restful lengthy time of rest on the pot. NOPE. As much as I hate it, I've had to give her count downs on the potty. This is a tried and true technique that parents use to help the transition from anything to anything (playing to eating, playing to bedtime, playing to bath, etc.) I never in a million years dreamed that I would be giving my daughter count-downs on transitions from toilet time to not-toilet time.

The mother-psychologist in me feels that this may come down to control. A part of it may be figuring out limits, her body and attention. All of this I know is true. But could it be possible, that in the chaos of our life with one another that she has found a slice of time that is all to herself. A place that she can be quiet and left alone? If this is indeed the case then I might take a lesson from my Pokey Maddie Maye and demand my own privacy once in awhile.