Book Me a Nice, Quiet Room at a Rehab Facility Now

It's been over two weeks since school let out, and despite my worries that we'd be twiddling our thumbs until camp started, the events have been myriad and sundry.

Here's a partial list:

1. Children's Museum and pancakes with Grace and Jules
2. Animal Crackers (play group) in Point Loma
3. Laguna Beach for Father's Day with my family
4. UTC for shopping and choo-choo with Caroline and the boys
5. Kung Fu Panda
6. Dominic's birthday party
7. Julianna's dance recital (hip hop)
8. Joy's dance recital (ballet)
9. Pacific Beach with Jessica and Yea-Yea
10. My Kid's Clubhouse with Jessica and Yea-Yea
11. Vietnamese lunch for Melissa's birthday
12. A morning of preschool friends and their moms at my house, followed by intensive Play-Doh removal

And that's not even counting adults-only fare like a play, a baby shower, an incredibly dirty comedy show called "Three Women in One Night," or David's and my first-ever Norwegian movie.

So, Readers, you might agree that I've been pretty occupied. But that's only the beginning, you see. And much as I hate to talk about this stuff in my blog (I always imagine it coming back to bite me in the ass in the not-so-distant future) I must add a fire-breathing chimera to the proceedings when I tell you that, exactly two weeks ago, IT also happened. The thing that dare not speak its name. The thing that has been filling me with dread, anxiety and feelings of inadequacy for over a year.

Potty training. See, my girl has been a lot like Bartleby the Scrivener up to now. She just prefers not to. Oh, she understands the whole business, sure. It's no mystery. But it's a lot of trouble and who can be bothered, when mommy's so good at what she does? And that's where we've been for a year.

Saturday morning, the morning after the preschool gala, she woke up and announced she'd be wearing her Dora underpants today.

"Until you get dressed," I amended.

"No," she said firmly. "All day."

"All day?" I queried in a high-pitched voice. "Do you know what that means? It means you'll have to use the potty wherever we go."

"Yeah." she said.

And that was it. We didn't stay home, she didn't go naked, she moved straight to the big potty, she even scorned her Dora seat insert. Within a few days, she was jonesing for every public commode in town. It was X-treme Potty, nothing but net, and whether we were home or out, she took care of business like it was a total yawn. Meanwhile, I was a total wreck, but trying to keep it all inside. Come to think of it, that's my normal state of being. But this time I could not shake an imagined future where I was mopping up piles of waste in the middle of a crowd.

I didn't have long to wait. Soon, the "accidents" started. She'd be busy playing or doing something, and suddenly she'd look like a deer in the headlights and let's just say Dora ended up in the garbage. The rest of the time she was, shall we say, anal retentive. I began to inwardly freak out more and more, until even my dreams were filled with accidents and their aftermath. Coincidentally, one week into this I attended a Potty 101 seminar through the Parent Connection, a plan I'd made months ago. The speaker gave me a few ideas for how to handle the varied terrain of my new reality. It was important that I not transfer my treasure chest of neuroses to my child all in one go--no, some of it can wait for her teenage years. But what a Herculean challenge for me.

Some of you veteran moms are probably shaking your heads in a "Oh, that Sam, always with the exaggerating!" kind of way. But I am not exaggerating. I was obsessed, in the silent, stalkerish, menacing looks from behind doors kind of way. Everyone said it wouldn't last, and I hoped with every fiber of my being that they were not being merely statistical. Lo, we have had some, ahem, breakthroughs in the past couple of days, and not a moment too soon for my fragile emotional state. (See what this kid has to deal with?)

So you can see that, not only were we busy, but every moment of every day was fraught with the possibility of peril. Dramatic enough for you? Let me add this:

The day before we were to return to our normal lives (i.e. Jarrah starting camp) she wakes up with a 103 fever. No other symptoms. Just this crazy fever, that just kept getting worse and worse until last night when David and I were turning in, she was soaking wet and 105. I barely slept all night. Checking the internet did NOT help. I had diagnosed her with meningitis, bacteria in the blood, jungle fever and an expanding brain mass by 1:00 a.m. It was a restful night. (She, conversely, never woke up, despite someone poking a stick in her ear every couple of hours.)

This morning, instead of Camp, Glorious Camp (that's actually its name) I made the long trek to Encinitas to get Jarrah "seen." We were late (I don't know how, except that it's like a million miles away) and then we sat in the waiting room for nearly an hour. ("Where is the doctor?" Jarrah asked. "She's behind," I said. The look on her face suggested this was not enough information.) Most of that time, Jarrah was huddled in my arms, keening softly and smoking hot. I was so relieved when they called "ja-RAH!"

After another long wait, the doc (new to us, but I liked her) asked us for a urine sample. "Is she potty-trained?" "Mostly," I said, feeling like an impostor. ("What!" my inner voice shouted. "It's true!") "Well, best of luck to ya," the doctor grinned, motioning us towards the room with the cups.

Readers, I can tell you all about that room. You know why? Because I visited it SIXTEEN TIMES in two hours. Guess how many of those times she produced? (Picture a full moon.) I was sweating. I was hungry. Jarrah was hungry, and feverish, and probably thinking I was totally cuckoo. We traipsed to and fro from exam room to bathroom to another exam room (when, invariably, we'd come back to our post and find it occupied.) I hunched at her knees, commanding, "Pee. Now!" while pressing a sippy cup to her unwilling lips. "Drink. More! More!" Can we say, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Potty Training...In Opposite World?"

Sometimes she'd cry, big, silent tears rolling down her face. I felt like gum on the sole of my shoe. She's sick, after all. She should be bundled up at home, watching Dora and sipping juice boxes. Not having a staring contest with a wild-eyed, wild-haired woman clutching a cup near her personal bits. Finally, I gave up. I called David, who offered to meet us for lunch (love that man) and suggested we could return with a specimen after that. I told him we'd meet him in Michael's, which is next door and always fun for a browse.

We'd been in Michael's about three minutes when Jarrah announced, "I have to go potty!" "Okay!" I shouted. I felt like I was on some sort of military mission. I raced her around the store until we found the door. Locked, with one of those computerized key pads. Must find someone with code. I ran up to a lady in the red smock, Jarrah trailing at a distance. "Can we get the bathroom code?" "I'll have to punch it in for you, for security reasons," she said (what, do they store shipments of heroin in there?) "I'll be there in a little while."

GAH! Oh no, oh no, oh no, I repeated, only not out loud, since I was dragging Jarrah behind me. Miraculously, Red Smock reached the door shortly after we did. "Crap," she said. "Wrong code." Find it, find it, find it, I chanted inwardly, and then burst through the door when she finally did. We ran into the big stall, and I told Jarrah to prepare while I found the cup. She was poised for action, and I was peeling the wrapper off, and then...SHE WENT. She just went, without waiting for my signal, and there she was spilling a precious resource that I HAD TO HAVE.

"NOOOOOOOOOO! "NO-NO-NO-NO-NO! STOP-STOP-STOP-STOP-STOP!' AAAAHHHHHH!

Jarrah stared at me, and kept doing what she was doing. It felt like a thousand years had passed, but I thrust the cup under and suddenly it was half full. I fell to my knees in gratitude. "Thank you," I panted. "Thank you, and I'm sorry for yelling."

Suddenly, the silence was deafening. Jarrah was staring at me like she'd never seen me before. Then came the sobs, big, heaving ones that let me know I'd really screwed this up. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I begged. "Please don't cry! Mommy shouldn't have gotten so upset! I just really needed this pee!"

That sounded odd when I heard it out loud. At this point, we'd made it out of the stall, and were standing near the sink. Jarrah leaned over and opened both taps all the way, and the water ricocheted off the basin and whacked us both in the face. I stood there with my face and shirt dripping and looked at Jarrah, who was also wet and looking very surprised.

And then, Readers, I laughed. I cracked up. I stood there and cracked up for about a minute because it seemed like a better idea than crying. And it was. I was starving, sweating, soaked, bone-tired, guilty and clutching a cup of pee in a high-security bathroom in Michael's Crafts, but it was going to end.

And it did. David showed up, we dropped off the sample, we waited some more, the doctor came and gave us the all-clear. Eventually, we got some lunch (it was close to 3:00 then) and made it home. Jarrah seemed a little better, in fact, by the time we left. When the doctor seemed surprised by the addition of David, Jarrah helped her out: "He's her husband," she explained, pointing at me. We all laughed. High-five on the sweet use of pronouns, too!

I've reached the end of my story. And now I want something from you, Dear Readers. Either find me a nice, quiet padded cell to recover from this two weeks in, or offer me some "been there, done that" sympathy. Please?