Family Life

Micah is taking potty training way too seriously. For the last couple of weeks he has been waking at night every hour and a half or so, calling out “Mum come!” quite loudly. Debbie groans, drags herself out of bed, picks up the toddler, takes off his diaper and sits him on the toilet. Where he promptly pees at length. Then she dresses him, tucks him into bed and flops back into her own bed with another groan, and tries to go back to sleep. This goes on all night long, every single night.

Besides the obvious question, Why Do We Have To Put Up With This, the situation has generated some intriguing scientific debate. For starters: Where on earth does he get all that liquid? Does he sneak a bottle into bed? Is there a secret stash in his crib? We’ve instituted strict drink rationing from dinnertime onwards, so we know what his intake is (rather, we think we know). And why does he save all his bathroom visits for bedtime? He doesn’t seem to need to go that often during the day.

The end result is a dry diaper in the morning plus exhausted parents. In the antithesis of potty training, we’re trying to convince Micah to not worry about using the toilet and just pee in his diaper. It’s OK, we don’t mind, honest! But no. He’s doggedly conscientious. “Mum come!”

Occasionally he’ll be so restless that Debbie will bring him into our bed, so that he doesn’t wake his two brothers. If one child awake in the middle of the night is bad, three grumpy, fussy boys are immensely worse. Hey, everybody’s awake! We might as well get everyone up and dressed and ready to start the day! At 4am.

Last night had an added twist in that I’d given the boys Glow Sticks at bedtime–small plastic luminescent rods. Micah had a death grip on his “Wo Dik”, and after bringing him into our bed Debbie spent the rest of the night with this really bright orange light constantly in her face. Micah’s idea of a good night’s sleep is to cuddle up to Mum as close as he possibly can, arms draped over her. Usually he crowds her right off the edge of the bed. The Glow Stick was the crowning indignation to a night (nay, week!) of frustrations.

Pray for us.

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