Today was a rough day. We didn’t have a single success of pee in the potty. The creeping doubt and low self-esteem throughout this week erupted into my own meltdown, and along with it came the guilt of feeling this way. I tell other parents all the time that it is okay and totally normal to feel frustration, to feel overwhelmed, to feel like things are hard; but it is hard to convince myself of that normalcy in my moments of overwhelm.

And that’s okay.

We need to feel our emotions instead of stifling them down. As my husband held me while I cried today, I told him “I don’t have time to cry.” He said “What do you mean? You absolutely have time to cry!” He wasn’t invalidating my feelings, instead he was encouraging me to feel them more! If I felt like crying, then I should cry. And you know what, I felt better after.

We got lucky today with a partial poop on the potty this morning, but only because I scooped him up and rushed him over as soon as I saw him squat and heard him grunt. He had been dancing around the apartment for about 10 minutes before it was actually poop time, so he was telling us in his own way that something was coming and he wasn’t exactly comfortable about it. A Poop Dance is his tell, and it’s really hard to miss. However, we are really struggling to have him sit and go on the potty. He will happily sit and read a couple of books, jump up and say “I did it!” when he really didn’t do anything. We’re thinking it’s just some more resistance happening. And think about it, you get used to the safety and security of a duaper for 19 months, and then suddenly you’re expected to just drop it from your body into this plastic bucket? How strange is that?! But we’re consistent, and we’ll get to that point of success. Glowacki has a whole chapter on poop, so it’s definitely not the easiest part of potty training.