four year old bums

Earlier today, I posted my Facebook status as this:

"If you're within a five mile radius of my house, please ignore the screams of the four year old who refuses to TRY to wipe her own bum and the whines of the two year old who refuses to clean up one single car from the living room floor. I'm finding that if you blare a Glee CD while you clean the kitchen, it does wonders to drown out the sounds."

And now, I'm going to take a few moments to gripe just a little more about my now four year old daughter's aversion to wiping her own tookus.  Sorry, I've got a lot that has frustrated me today, and this is probably the only one that I can get away with writing about publicly.  (And that's a point that could be debated.)

So back in the day when I was teaching preschool, I spent most of those ten years in the company of four and five year olds in the prekindergarten year, and I was known to have some key phrases that I liked to say.  If a child walked into the classroom ahead of his or her parents, I would likely say, "Oh, I see you drove yourself to school today, huh?"  (Laughs would ensue.  I'm HIlarious to kids under six.)  Or, if kids would ask me to chase them on the playground, I often would bow out of that dreadful running activity by pointing out, "I'm so sorry, I don't have very good running shoes on today."  (Suggestions for college student aides who were very good at running, and wearing the proper footwear would follow.)  But there is probably one phrase that I became somewhat known for among my colleagues and friends.  And it would be uttered with a whole lot of frequency at the beginning of the school year to my children, but that repetition would eventually pay off.

"Mrs. (insert my last name here) doesn't wipe four year old butts."

Nope.  I don't do it.  I will stand and give demonstrations and verbal instructions, but I will not be a primary bum-wiper for children who are capable of riding tricycles, putting together puzzles, building complex structures with unit blocks, and stringing beads.  The necessary gross and fine motor skills are there, and the task is one of importance for self-care that should be taken care of by 'selves.'  And if a valiant effort was made, with determination and a can-do attitude, I certainly wouldn't be averse to donning the latex gloves and giving some final hands-on finishing-the-job-assistance.  I get that- no one does a task perfectly right away, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna tackle it on my own.

Now that I'm out of the classroom and have a crew of two preschool-aged children in my care as opposed to a group of eighteen, some things in my life have adapted, but for the most part, my expectations for my own children at home are consistent with my expectations of my former students in a classroom setting.  Pudge may be peeing in his little potty every other day or so at random times, but he's still a diapered two-and-a-half-year old boy, and my hope is that this summer will see a successful go at the potty training experience.  And then there's Red- who at Pudge's age was completely potty-trained already- pee, poop, daytime, and naptime, you  name it.  She still wore pull-ups (what we called "nighttime underwear" because something about that brand-name rubs me the wrong way) at night for about five or so more months, but after weeks and weeks of them being dry in the morning and getting reused night after night until they fell apart told us it was time to move on.

At four years old now, Red's got a solid year and a half experience of relieving herself on the toilet and taking care of the clean up business that follows.  For all that time, I've modeled for her the proper wiping experience.  The appropriate length of toilet paper to rip off the roll, the most effective way of folding it and draping it over your hand, and a comfortable way to stretch back there and wipe (front to back of course for her protection!).  I've assisted when necessary or cleaned up the remnants of a job not-completely-well-done, and I've made sure that baby wipes are in every bathroom cabinet for those tougher jobs.

Well, apparently all of that experience is for naught, because Red has now decided that she doesn't "want to get her hands dirty!" or fears that she might "touch the poopy with her fingers" or that she doesn't "know how to do it anymore!"  Well guess what, girlfriend?

"Mommy doesn't wipe four year old butts."

The phrase has been slightly reworded but the feeling is still there.  I know she is capable of doing this task, this personal and valuable self-care task.  I know that she has strong fine motor skills, and I know that her arms are long enough to reach her own derriere.  But she has begun to adamantly refuse to make any attempts at doing the job.  And today?  Well the you know what really hit the fan.  (Terrible but appropriate pun.)

She told me while we were talking in the living room that she had to go poop.  (She always makes an announcement-- it's like she's a TMI-prone individual with a Twitter account.)  I reminded her, "What do you need to remember to get out?"  "The wipes, I know!"  Thirty seconds later, the whining began, "There aren't any wipes in here!"  (Dammit.  I guess my vigilance isn't as strong as I thought.)  "Come on out and grab the wipes out here, then."  "I can't!  I'm already on the toilet!"  (sigh)  "Okay, I'll bring some in to you in a second."

I bring in three wipes, lay them on the edge of the sink and turn to go out.  "I need your help!"  "No, sweetie, you have three wipes here and you can try to do it."  "No, I can't!"  "Yes, you can.  I will come and help you if you still need it after you use these three wipes."

I leave the little bathroom to a crescendo of her specialty cry/whine (crine?) that can send me from serenity to insane in a matter of minutes.  (Especially in Week Three.)  The twenty-five minutes that followed were excruciatingly frustrating.  She absolutely refused to even try, and I refused to budge.  Yes, I definitely see the irony of our dual-expressions of stubbornness, but I am the parent, so I get to be in charge.  I know what she's capable of, and I know that I feel strongly about sticking to my word once I've made a reasonable declaration to my children.  So, I found myself going into the bathroom every few minutes to repeat the statement, "I will help you after you use these three wipes to try to wipe your own butt."  My patience and composure did not remain steady for each of those times, though, and I finally went in one last time at the 25 minute mark.  (25!)

"This is your last chance.  I am all done listening to your screaming and crying.  If you don't try to wipe your butt right now, we will not be meeting our friends at the playground this morning, and you will be going up to your bedroom for a very early naptime."  I dropped the first wipe into her hand and said, "Now."

And guess what?  The girl wiped her fanny, folded the cloth, wiped again, tossed it in the trash and repeated that process through the other two wipes, and her rump was 99% poop-free.  One last swipe from a now incredibly frustrated Mom, and the job was done.  Because I am that mom, I couldn't resist the "See how you can do this?  See how it takes only a minute?  If you had done this twenty-five minutes ago, you would have been back at playing a long time ago and you wouldn't be so upset and I wouldn't be so angry." 

Feel free to crown me with my Mom of the Millennium title anytime now.

So yes, while my ability to exercise patience isn't too strong right now, I'm still sticking to my guns about her needing to make an effort at the wiping task before my physical assistance comes into play.  I'm not against helping her out after she tries, and I've made that crystal clear, so she has got to get over her new found aversion to wiping her own bum.


Assuming that I've lost some readers with this one,