Monday Irritations

The next post I want to write is celebratory, so I'll just get some whining out of the way now, like a front blowing through before the sunshine.

1. Potty
2. My feet

Potty.

Ellie was ready to potty train at 18 months. She had both awareness and control at an early age. She'd always worn cloth diapers and did not like the feeling of being wet or dirty. She was a regular sort of gal, and started depositing her morning offering into the potty chair rather than her diaper before she was even 2 years old, as long as we got her out of her crib at her request and didn't make her wait too long.

But we didn't potty train Ellie for more than a year after that, during which time we lapsed into disposable diapers, pull-ups, and putting Ellie on the potty at irregular intervals. Ellie was nearly 2-1/2 before she could walk quickly to the potty from various places around the house. She was older than that before she could pull her pants up and down by herself. We didn't want to take her out of diapers before she could toilet herself without assistance, and I'm still not sure if that was the right call or not. It certainly led to many extra months of enforcing bad habits.

The only reason Ellie doesn't have more accidents now is her iron bladder. She can hold it for hours and hours and hours when she wants to . . . until the next time someone forces her to the bathroom or she just gives up and has an accident. I'm trying to see it as a big step forward that she's been telling me when she has had an accident lately, rather than ignoring it. Our big mistake with Ellie: not making her take ownership of the process. And that is HARD to correct.

Ellie also spends ridiculous amounts of time on the toilet doing nothing except touching things that shouldn't be touched (hair on the toilet seat? why not? hands rubbing the top of the bowl? good fun!). These things make me crazy and I'm very glad that cameras do not follow me into bathrooms capturing my worst parenting moments.

With Ada my complaint list is shorter: aim. Keep it in the potty, little one! I love your independence but wish you didn't somehow tinkle over the front edge of the toilet and onto your socks, especially at Lowe's. That is all.

My feet.

I have plantar fasciitis. Basically, I have fallen arches. They hurt a lot, though not all the time. Years ago, I had to give up my two favorite exercises, cardio kickboxing and rollerblading, because I was whimpering with pain after increasingly shorter intervals of activity. Giving up the only exercises I enjoyed led to - you guessed it! - weight gain.

Militant attention to stretches, proper shoes, and taking of anti-inflammatory drugs shoved the problem into remission, though I still couldn't run, squat, or skate. But at least I could walk around without pain.

Then I spent a week on the beach, walking in sand (boo hiss) and in flip flops (nasty, terrible things). Since then I've been - as usual - carrying children around. And my feet have been hurting again, more than ever. It's terrible.

So lots of stretching and no working out for me last week, this week, probably for a few weeks to come. Which sucks.

By the way, if you've never been fat you probably don't know this. When you go to the doctor for ANY reason while fat, the doctor suggests that the fat is the problem. Your feet hurt? Lose weight! In my case, the foot pain indirectly caused the weight gain, not the reverse. Official advice for treating plantar fasciitis: stretch, wear supportive shoes ALL the time, ice, drugs, rest/avoid extended physical activities, LOSE WEIGHT.

That's a neat trick! If I figure out how to lose weight while resting and avoiding extended physical activities, I'll be sure to let you know. And I'll only charge you a few thousand dollars for the knowledge. That should pay for all my orthopedic shoes . . .

Tomorrow: good things!