Of Sickness and Pee

Oh what a day we've had around here. Usually I am in bed by now. It is 11:00 pm (and still daylight, by the way thanks to our crazy-awesome Alaskan daylight) But I am not in bed. Instead, I've spent the last several hours soothing my poor sweet sick Claire. She decided to come down with some sort of weird hacky, barky, coughy, full of fever, no appetite ailment. And it all started Saturday. She has been running a 102 fever for the past few days and the poor thing can't get any sleep because she keeps waking up in hard-to-stop coughing/barking fits. I am guessing we are dealing with croup. But regardless of the cause, my poor baby is quite miserable and I feel so bad for her.

On top of all that, I am just waiting, WAITING for Sarah and I to come down with it next. Why? Well, Claire's coughs come so quickly and randomly (it's like her diaphragm just spasms out of control) that she will often be in mid sentence looking you right in the eye when a giant cough occurs with no warning. I have been sprayed with her cooties more times than I can count in these past 48 hours. And Sarah? Well, try as I might to keep her away from Claire's cootie zone, I found her sucking on the thermometer I had yet to sterilize after taking Claire's temperature. Lovely. So thanks to that germsicle, Sarah and I both no doubt have something ominous brewing within us and are just waiting for the fallout.

Now I am not really sure how Claire got sick. But I do know why. Fevers always have a way of rearing their ugly heads in our house just before big events. Schedule a trip? Bring home a fever. Family coming to visit? Better pull out the thermometer. So of course, this fever has preceded another big event. I chose this week to begin potty training Sarah. It was the perfect week. Gymnastics were finally over. My women's bible study has wrapped up its current session. For the first time in months, we have nothing we HAVE to do this week. So I thought it was the perfect time to start the potty training process. I actually planned to start the training process on Monday, but when Claire's temperature flared up and we couldn't take her to church, I decided that since we'd be stuck at home anyway, we'd start the training a day early.

Sigh.

That sigh deserved to be a paragraph all its own. Day 1 of potty training has been a roller coaster. It started out very, VERY well. But things quickly spiraled downhill.

We did all the typical potty training prep. Once Sarah woke up and had her breakfast, I started the timer to remind me to take her to the potty every 10 minutes just to see if anything would happen. The first three attempts were moderately successful in that she sat happily on the potty while I read her a book. No fussing, happy as a clam Sarah just sat there until I said, "All done!" and then she happily got down and resumed play time.

On attempt 4, she actually went potty a little bit. SCORE!! That provided the opportunity for lots of verbal praise and, of course, some Skittles. Sarah was shocked. Candy? CANDY?! She never even noticed the container of Skittles sitting by the sink until I delved out the first round. She was thrilled. Elated. As was I.

Attempt #5 went just as smoothly. She went potty for Daddy and received yet another skittle. Things were going well. Then I made a fatal mistake. I literally said these words, "This is going so much smoother than when we did this with Claire!". Yes, I did. Really.

Sigh.

That was the turning point. For whatever reason, from that point on, Sarah wanted nothing to do with the potty. When we would say, "Time to go potty!" She would shake her head no and run in the opposite direction. We didn't want to force her just yet. After all, this is just day 1. She is really just supposed to be learning what the potty is all about right now. The last thing we want to do is traumatize her to the point that she won't ever sit on the potty. So we did our best to play it cool. I think we got her on the potty two more times before the end of the day. And both of those times she was unsuccessful at going potty.

I realize that she may not be ready yet, but I am not giving up after only one day. We are giving it this week before we decide whether or not to postpone further training. And if she ends up with Claire's nasty virus, then I expect that to derail training all together. No way am I going to force a baby with a 102 fever to sit on a potty. So time will tell.

I look forward to reporting back in a couple of days that Sarah and I are healthy and that Sarah is fully potty trained. Hey, don't laugh. You gotta think positive, right?