March 24, 2005 - Thursday
Jeremy was clearly in a bad mood when came out of his bedroom this morning.
"Where's Mommy?" he asked. He asks that question often, so he almost certainly already knows the answer. I suppose it's possible that what he really means to be asking is, "is this a school day or the weekend [when mommy would be home]" and often the question comes out innocent enough to be just that. But sometimes, like this morning, he's clearly looking for a reason to flex his three-year-old sense of self.
"She's at the archives, Jeremy," I replied, as I've answered many times to that question.
Jeremy immediately started to pout and whimper. I wanted none of the attitude and sent him back to his room, telling him that if he's not ready to be nice this morning that he should go back to his room until he is.
He put on a big show.
I ignored it.
A couple minutes later he came out with pee soaking through the bottom of his footy pajamas.

I've cleaned this stuff up before several times and just about each time I remind myself that "experts" say that you don't want the child to feel humiliated when he's had a accident. Sometimes that's harder than others and sometimes I get more visibly irked by something related, like when Jeremy used to have accidents and then not say anything. In those cases, the accident was really OK, but the not saying anything or asking for help was something that needed to be addressed. Those times present a delicate balancing act that I confess is not one of my strengths. I do the best I can.

Today, however, there was no delicate balancing act. There was no warm and cozy, supportive parenting. Jeremy peed in his pajamas because I didn't buy into his posturing this morning and I wasn't going to stand for it. I even asked him if he did it on purpose and he said "yes." I was angry and he knew it. At the first hint of more whining downstairs before breakfast I told him I did not want to be around him if he was going to be like that and put him in the dinner room to eat breakfast by himself. Harry and I ate in the kitchen.

It was a bad morning.


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