Regression

I will openly admit that I have been judgy in the past. And probably will be again in the future. But I absolve myself slightly because it is human nature to judge what we don't understand. And there's a lot of being a parent that you just don't understand until you've been there.

Take the idea of regression. I kind of thought it was bull. I thought, how does a kid suddenly go backwards like that? I don't care what happened to that kid, if the parenting was there, how could they start to go in reverse? Doesn't that just mean the kid has no support?

And then...I had Joseph.

Now, I don't mean to sound like my kid is a prodigy. I love him, but he's not going to MIT anytime soon. But the boy is smart. Often a little too smart for my comfort. Since birth, he hit every milestone early. Holding up his head, sitting, eating, standing, walking, all of them. Except one. Potty training.

Potty training had been a struggle for us. I had visions of it being done before he was 2. Then he was 3, and I worked like a demon all spring and summer, knowing that preschool started in the fall. And...it worked. By the time he walked through the classroom door in September, he was potty trained.

Then the accident happened, and I started to watch the clock turn back on my little boy. My independent, run-everywhere preschooler became a clingy 18-month-old toddler. The most obvious regression was in the bathroom. Or rather, everywhere but the bathroom.

Nothing makes you feel like a failure as a parent more than watching your child suffer with so much pain that he wants to just make the last two years go away. To have a 4-year-old essentially say "This is just too hard. It hurts too much. Things were better half my life ago. I want to be a baby again."