So, my husband just bought Wesley his own little training potty. It plays music if he peepee's in the potty. It's really cute (if a toilet can be cute)! We were both really excited to let Wesley try it out this morning. We headed to the bathroom. Eric got on the "big" potty and placed Wesley on his new training potty. Wesley just sits there and kicks his feet. We wait, and wait, and wait.... Eric grabs a little dixie cup of water and pours it in the potty so that Wesley will hear the "reward song." I quickly say, "Now he's being rewarded for just sitting there. He's going to want to pour water in his toilet." He keeps sitting there. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Eric decides to empty out the water from the toilet. He moves Wesley and dumps the water. I said, "Now he knows that the toilet comes apart and he's going to want to play with it." Eric turns to Wesley, puts his diaper on him, and says to me, "You are in charge of potty training now." He appeared to be frustrated. Naive little me says, "OK." Then a minute later I say, "Are you frustrated about something?" DUH Sadie! He says, "Very!" I had just finished making my husband feel like he couldn't do anything right. He leaves to take a shower. I bust into tears. Thankfully I had a few moments to sit and think. He came back in and I apologized for not thinking about his feelings. He forgave me. :) We hugged and then he left for work.
Do you sometimes have those "DUH" moments too? Why wasn't I thinking? I need to be more intentional with my words. I could have said, "Maybe it's not a good idea to pour water in the potty. It may confuse Wesley's training." And the cleaning of the potty, that was just a silly statement. We have to take it apart once he uses it in order to clean it anyway. Wesley's going to figure it out sooner or later.
It's hard to admit wrong-doing. You have to truly swallow your pride. But it is crucial for a healthy marriage and for character-building. I think we could all be more intentional with our words and with our apologies.
