Our original goal was that by the end of this summer (hopefully sooner), we’d have Kaia out of pull-ups overnight. Once we get her out of pull-ups overnight, Pookster will officially be 100 percent diaper free (because, yes, as the Oh Crap! training lady says, pull-ups are still diapers). Last summer, she got the peeing down pretty quickly with an accident here or there. The pooping took some time as expected, but she got it within a reasonable amount of time. After our Australia/China/Hong Kong trip late last year into this year, we stopped carrying around the little potty, so she knows she has to use the big potty (with a toddler seat on top). Day time training was relatively painless for us, especially when I see all the potty training horror stories in my parent groups. Night time training, while we attempted to do it the first week we did day time training, did not go well at all. I still remember that last August, I successfully got her to pee in the little potty overnight just once. And then, several hours later, she still wet the bed for her second nightly pee. With warm summer weather now, we thought it would be easier to try to clean her up and have her wear little shorts to bed to minimize dirty laundry.

Chris’s cousin had suggested that we begin overnight training by simply not sending her to bed in any pull-up. This way, she’d realize how sticky and uncomfortable it was, and that would urge her to pee in the potty. Well, we are on night three of consecutively going without any pull-up, and somehow, she seems to show zero desire to get out of bed to urinate at night. We know she’s wet the bed/herself when she wakes up crying for us, or if she walks all the way over to our bed and says, “I wet” (I still love and cannot get over the cuteness of how incorrect that sentence is. I am lightly dreading the day when she comes over and says, “I am wet” or “I’m wet.” It’s like the other night when I went out with a friend for the evening. I told her I’d be back when she was asleep. And she came over at 5am with a huge grin on her face and declared, “Mumma, you came back!” instead of a month or so ago when she said, “Mumma, you back!” I loved the evolution in the sentence and hated it all at the same time. My baby’s youth was slowly slipping away in front of my eyes…. and ears).

We shall see how this goes. But unfortunately, I have a feeling that the Oh Crap! training lady will have it right in the end; I’m probably going to have to go down the damn “guesstimating” route of trying to guess which two windows at night are when she is most likely to pee and drag her to the toilet. The fun that awaits!

One of the very first hands-on, fascinating science experiments I did in elementary school was when I was in first grade. In our class, we were studying the lifecycle of a butterfly, and we had caterpillars that we were housing in a protective environment. One big distinction I remember when I was six years old is that the teacher emphasized that a butterfly’s protective casing (or “house”) during its pupal stage is called a chrysalis. The chrysalis “house” is hard and smooth on the outside. This is different from a moth, which uses a cocoon, made of silk. And yes, butterflies and moths are not the same. I was never great at science. I was okay at biology, decent at chemistry, and horrible with physics. But this one fact about a chrysalis and a butterfly I remember until this very darn day — all because of that first grade lesson plan.

So when I got a copy of the famous and popular children’s book by Eric Carle called The Very Hungry Caterpillar (via my local Buy-Nothing group — yay!), I got annoyed when we reached the part of the book where the caterpillar builds “a small house, called a cocoon, around himself.” This would have been all fine and dandy had he become a moth. But no, he turned into a beautiful butterfly as the book so clearly states! So instead of calling it a “cocoon” as the book does, I would correct it and tell Kaia that it’s a chrysalis. She never had a reaction to it any of the countless times I’ve read this book with her. Chris would troll me and tell me that I didn’t actually read that part of the book correctly, but I didn’t care. Get the facts straight! Understanding facts (and fake news) starts early — as in NOW!

In the last couple weeks, Kaia’s class has been doing a lesson on butterflies. And so they’ve also watched the metamorphosis of a butterfly…. not a moth. While giving Kaia a shower this evening, she randomly talked about butterflies and what she was learning in school, and she exclaimed, “Butterflies come from a chrysalis!”

I shrieked with joy and started clapping my hands vigorously. Kaia got really excited and started squealing with delight at my reaction. And Chris, having overheard this from outside the bathroom, once again came in to troll me and said, “You meant the cocoon!”

This seriously made my day today. I was so happy after she said this. I felt like a very proud parent of her child. My baby is going to know the real facts, not the made up ones!

There’s a lot to love about parenting a toddler. There’s also a lot that will make you want to rip your hair out and ask yourself why you ever thought becoming a parent is a good idea. “Character building” is certainly one way to put what parenting does to you when you are, in fact, an active parent who actually cares about your offspring.

Last night, we were eating the last of our first batch of lychees for the season. I finally taught Kaia how to peel lychees on Sunday. She already knew how to eat around the pit, as she does with cherries, but this was the first time I actually forced her to peel them herself. Though she initially resisted with her favorite line of, “I don’t know how to!”, she ended up complying after I gave her a small head start by peeling off a tiny piece of one’s shell. As she peeled more and more, she got faster and faster. Kaia even started peeling off huge, long pieces and getting excited by how large the peels were getting. Her focus was very clear as she was peeling each one, and she was definitely getting prouder of herself with her increased speed and peeling off larger sections at once with each following lychee. As I multi-tasked with cleaning and also sitting with her, she insisted that, “Mumma, sit down!” I want you to peel lychees with me.” I tried to offer her a few of the ones I peeled, but she was so sweet; she said I should have them and she will peel her own. It was so cute for her to insist that I sit with her and do this new activity together, and that I also be able to enjoy the lychees alongside her.

Well, that sweetness was then all washed away when the next morning, while eating her organic Whole Foods “cheerios,” out of nowhere she asked for the healthy chocolate muffins I made. We’d run out of those before we left for Guatemala, so I wasn’t sure why she suddenly asked for them. I told her we didn’t have anymore, that she had eaten them all, so she couldn’t have any. Well, that wasn’t the right answer (duh), and she proceeded to have a melt down. “I didn’t eat them all! No, I didn’t!” she yelled.

She cried, yelled, screamed, and kicked up until the point it was time to go to school. Throughout that period, she yelled multiple times, “I don’t want you! I don’t like you, Mumma! GO AWAY!”

Chris always laughs and finds it amusing when she says this. He likes to remind me (because he is a mean husband) that she says that to me at least several times a week. There’s also a subtle implication that she doesn’t say that to him as often. However, I do not fall for the bait, and I say little in response whenever he brings this up. I do not need to deal with the ridiculous concept of parental rivalry in the emotional whims and immaturity of a toddler.

When I was at lunch with my friend on Monday, I shared similar extremes of Kaia to let her know what parenting is like on the average, typical day of someone in her age range. My friend gave me this sour look and laughed.

“It’s no wonder people who become parents stop having sex!” she said to me. “Who wants to have sex when you’re exhausted as fuck by all that?!”