Control, Control, Control

Yes, the battle continues. Just when I think that we are making progress and I grant a small liberty to Amelia~the battle for control starts to rage again. You would think that after ten months she would figure out that I won't give up!!! I can only imagine what the teen years will be like~maybe I'll be old and worn out by then!?! NOT!!!!

Here's the story...I'll attempt to describe this "event" with some humor. Believe me, it wasn't humorous at the time!

Saturday was Matthew's graduation from high school. The ceremony was in the morning and we were having an open house in the afternoon. The girls did not go~for obvious reasons~way too much confusion! So they stayed at home with their aunt. I decided to put Amelia down for her nap at the normal time and let her enjoy the last half of the party. My reasoning was that if I let her stay up until 2 p.m. then I might as well let her skip her entire nap~skipping naps is not a good option around her. It makes for grumpy and unpleasant toddlers.

I put Amelia down at 1 p.m. with little resistance (just the normal wailing when I leave the room). Unfortunately, people started arriving at around 1:30 p.m. and the noise level escalated way earlier than I expected. Naturally, Amelia voiced her disdain for the fact that she was napping when there was action going on in the house (she voices her disdain when there's no action) so this wasn't a surprise to me. As per my usual response, I ignored her "unpleasantness" since I refuse to acknowledge her nasty demands (it's more like screaming).

Fast forward about 30 minutes and I head to her room to change her into her party dress and take her down stairs. Imagine my surprise when I walk into her room and see her bare butt sticking up in the air as something drops from that bottom!!! Yes, she pulled her diaper down and pooed in her bed. This action still stuns me~I really don't know what to say about it. I still can't find any humor in it. If I had been even one minute later, who knows what kind of a mess I would have found. Fortunately, there was only a small amount of "stuff" on her brand new, very expensive brace! My head just spins when I think of it! Now imagine all of this happening when I have a house full of guests!?!

So I learned my lesson...I can't let her go to bed without her no-nos on. We put them on her so she won't undo her brace~if she undoes it, then she risks relapsing. A relapse is what we are dealing with now ~ which means more casting and surgery. As you can imagine, messing with the brace is unacceptable. But she continues to do so. She's a smart little girl~just very manipulative.

After this little "episode" I now know that she will pull down her diaper if she wants to. I guess that means she can pull her pants down for potty training. Looks like "Potty Training Boot Camp" is right around the corner!!!!

The battle rages on...it should be an interesting summer. Maybe the our one year anniversy will bring some progress~I'm not holding my breath!