I’ve been lucky in a lot of ways with Isobel. Everything extreme in her, that has made me cry and yell and want to just go to sleep until she outgrows the phase, has been balanced out by the things that are so easy (that I know other parents have such issues with).
My girl loves to eat fruits and vegetables. She walked early, communicates well and is virtually potty training herself. She’s social and gloms onto anyone she views as a potential care giver – often climbing into their laps and comfortable being held by them in such emergency situations as falling down. My girl sings and dances and laughs, loves animals, seeks adventure and new books.
She’s a perfect, tiny genius, to me.
And I think it’s mostly her, not me or her father’s influence, that predominates the reasons she is this person. Modeling and geneology are a factor, but she just…and has been since the moment she was born…is Isobel.
So, the concern, the thing that is bordering on, but is not totally, anger, is what happens during her visits with her dad.
They do whatever. I mean, short of in the summertime, when she got sunstroke a few times, I’ve never had occasion or need to control what they do. There’s certain rules in our agreement and I’m confident those are followed – I can trust that much – so their activities are not my concern at all. It’s the in between stuff.
It’s that he expects her to have food packed for the 5-hour visit, so that he doesn’t have to pay to get her food (he pays a substantial amount of support, I agree that this is fair) – and then she either wasn’t eating it, and/or she is given food he has bought for her. Food which is completely contrary to what I had communicated about her diet – cow’s milk, fast food, cupcakes, [insert character of the moment] fruit {ya right} snacks.
It’s that he can’t stand changing diapers, but isn’t taking an active part in the potty training process, short of asking her a few times over the last few weeks if she had to pee.
I’ll be honest, potty training meant she got some books, pull ups, a new potty and a movie. And then she was bribed. That’s pretty much it. And I think it was the bribes that did it, mostly.
There’s been no pleading, or "don’t you wanna be a big girl?"s. It’s been pretty much "here’s what you do, kid. Go to it. If you feel like it. If you pee, you get a Dora treat; if you poop, you get a mini-cupcake; if we’re out and you tell me you need to do either or both of those and you do, you get a whole pack of Dora treats." And away we went.
Two weeks in, she was peeing every time we were at home, when not in the crib. Three weeks in, she had finally pooped and was going for a few hours with dry panties (shudder), sans diaper, outside. A couple days after that she mastered the art of yelling across a busy mini-mall, "Mama, I wanta go pee pee in the potty" and did.
I’m thinking, if there be no regression during this week, we’ll be knocking the railing and wheels off of her crib and letting her roam free, so she can pee anytime of the day. Then we shall toss the diapers. But you know, whatever she’s ready for.
So after two days of her consistently telling me she had to go while we were out and aboot, today’s visit came and with it, reasons why she didn’t get to go in the potty and two wet pull ups. And in a four hour period, she was given a pack of Dora treats, a cupcake, fries and some burger – even though she had snacks packed and he knew the potty success situations for which she’d get further treats (than the hot chocolate with soy milk I bought her before we parted company).
I think a lot of it is that he just doesn’t consider it as important as I do. I know on some level, he thinks I’m too structured and he needs to balance my effect out, with her. I know he doesn’t see the effect this kind of crap has on her, hours after he goes home – so it’s easy to just not realize that it will have an effect.
These ideas seem reasonable, but it also seems like he just thinks it’s a joke. Like, she’s with him, whatever goes, goes. I actually had to bust him when I found a french fry in her stroller – he’d omitted telling me about that, purposefully – a food he’s given her almost every weekend since these visits started in July. He laughed and made some crack in line with not her hiding the evidence well enough.
Of course, I have a problem with her refusing her veggies at dinner time, requesting chocolate. I take issue with her being on a super duper holy fuck her head’s going to bounce off sugar high for three hours, during which we have to grocery shop. Followed by a ginormous CRASH, involving thrown puzzles, crying, shrieking, wilting, snot and torn off diapers. And bedtime. I dislike having to pack her a lunch and snacks and diapers and wipes, knowing that she might not eat them, and that she could soon be out of diapers completely, but she might not get to a toilet when she wants to.
But ultimately, I just don’t know. Is it 100% cuz I’m concerned about the negative effect this junk food and lack of potty time will have on her? Or am I just trying to make my rules stick. Is the reason I’m upset cuz I’m trying to control her and he’s standing in the way? Or him, as a parent?
Trying to go with the flow and not be controlling is hard for me – especially trying to not control him or his choices, and especially how they reflect on Isobel. So I’m second guessing myself on each little pit-of-my-stomach feeling. I’m questioning if instinct is real, or it’s practiced control. 80 million times a day.
And I just don’t know.
