Traumatized for Life

So Allison is now 18 months old and started exhibiting some signs that she is becoming more aware of wet and stinky diapers and what causes them. A few weeks ago she started grabbing her diaper and whining at about the same time each night. After a few days I finally figured it out and asked her if she needed to go potty. Sure enough she would tottle into the bathroom and stand next to the toilet and wait. I would take her diaper off and hold her on the toilet. Nothing ever resulted, but at least we seemed to be heading in the right direction.

Then last week we had a little trauma. Our routine started off pretty much the same, she grabbed her diaper, I asked her the million dollar question and she scuttled off to the bathroom. I placed her on the toilet and nothing happened. So there we were just chatting in the bathroom. I was sitting on the floor next to the toilet, she was standing next to me butt naked. All of the sudden the pee started flowing. In a great and oh-so-calm mommy moment I panicked, grabbed her and tried to hoist her on to the toilet to do her thing.

Obviously the trickle of pee combined with me grabbing her quickly and ushering her toward the toilet scared poor little Allison. She tightened every muscle in her body and became rigid as a board. My attempt to get her sitting on the toilet were in vain, the only part of her body that got close to the toilet were her feet that we now in the toilet bowl. Meanwhile her thighs were clinched so tightly together that the pee was making a perfect arch and spraying all over me. I continued in my attempts to get her to bend at the hips and sit on the toilet and she continued to pee all over me. Of course at this point I am screaming,, “No! WAIT! SIT!!,” anything to get her to cooperate.

Unfortunately at this point she is also screaming and scared to death that she’d done something wrong. UGH! So when the longest pee in the history of 18-month-olds ends I am soaked in pee and she is screaming in fear, running butt naked through the house to the safety of daddy.

Of course daddy is not so supportive and tells me that that was not the proper way to handle the situation {DUH! Thanks, Captain Obvious!}

So now we are trying to determine how to proceed. Unfortunately, she is, I think, scarred for life about the potty. Now in the evening when she grabs her diaper and I ask her if she needs to go potty, she whines, shakes her head vehemently and runs in the opposite direction of me. Sounds like it’s daddy’s turn to take over potty training duty and show me how it’s supposed to be done, right?