So anyone who has had a kid knows that from time to time they have accidents.  Sometimes it's in the car, sometimes on the way to the potty.  And sometimes it's in the bed.  Especially if they aren't that far out from potty-training.  This is one of those stories.

(Note: Someday Lil Miss is going to read this blog and it will be the reason she hates me.)

So it took forever to potty-train Lil Miss.  We started training her at about 18 months and by the time she was 4, she still wasn't going on the potty.  Not even the cute little kiddy potty.  Nothing.  I tried everything.  I would sit her on the seat and wait for hours.  Nothing.  I would take her in the bathroom when I had to go so she could see what was supposed to happen.  Nothing.  I got her cousin involved (who was 2 months younger and had been going for about a year already).  I helped, she would try, but still, nothing.  

Then one day while we were driving home, we got behind a school bus.  Lil Miss REALLY wanted to go to school (and she was actually enrolled to start in the fall, but she could only go if she was, in fact, potty-trained).  She started going on about how she wanted to ride on the "big-girl" bus to go to school.  Seeing my opportunity, and being frustrated, I told her she couldn't go to school and ride the bus until she started going on the potty.

Two days later she was potty-trained.  

WTF?!?!  That was all I had needed to tell her?  How had I not figured this out sooner?  And had the lil shit just been holding out on me to make my life miserable because she didn't want to wipe her own ass?  Ok, I can't blame her for that last one because, really, who doesn't want someone else to wipe their ass?

Anyway, for the next couple of months we (she) would have regular, middle of the night accidents, but who doesn't.  Eventually these ended too as she grew to wake herself up when the pressure would build.

So about a year after the accidents stopped...she had an accident.  Here's what happened and how it turns out that apparently I pee the bed.

By this time I had separated from her dad (I may have been divorced at the time.  I don't remember) and we were living in a 2 bedroom apartment.  This particular apartment had REALLY drafty windows.  In fact, it was so bad in Lil Miss's room that I had to put a thermometer in her room so on particularly cold nights I would know not to let her sleep in there.  Or crank the heat up so that the rest of the apartment was slightly cooler than a sauna so her room would be just right. 

So one night it got really cold after we went to sleep.  In the middle of the night Lil Miss climbed into bed with me.  She was 5 at the time.  I don't know when she climbed in, but I always knew she was there.  To this day it's like sleeping with a little kicking tornado.  I have actually woken up to find her sleeping ON me.  So when one of her little feet caught me right in my spine I figured out that she was there.  I didn't think anything of it and rolled over and went back to sleep.

Some time later I woke up to a puddle quickly spreading out under me.  How it was that I figured out so quickly that she was peeing the bed still baffles me, but I was up and out of the bed faster than lightning.  Not that I ever took lightning to bed and have a frame of reference on how fast it can get out.

Lil Miss slept through it.  Now too her credit, when she climbed in next to me, she climbed in on the side that has one of those drafty windows.  So not only did she kick the covers off from her constant flip-flopping, but she also had a mid-winter breeze blowing across her.  She got cold.  Peeing, for some reason, is what happens when you get cold.  Because God hates us and linked our bladders to the weather and then gave us winter.  Thanks God, cute joke.

So not wanting to wake her up, I tried like crazy to maneuver Lil Miss so that I could clean up without waking her.  I failed.  While trying to lift her off the bed, to get to the mattress, she woke up.  Which, in hind sight, turned out to be ok because she definitely needed a bath.

Upon waking up and realizing what had happened, Lil Miss, bless her, FREAKED THE FUCK OUT!!!

I mean, you could not console her.  She started crying and apologizing.  Over and over and over and over and over and OVER.  The whole time I'm telling her it's ok.  Just relax.  Calm down.  I'm not mad.  Accidents happen.  Then cam the phrase that got to her.  "They are accidents because you don't mean for them to happen, but they happen to everyone."

Have I mentioned how my daughter is extremely smart?  Even at 5 years old she can hear or see something and pick it apart in order to understand the meaning or logic of it.

Lil Miss:  Accidents happen to everyone?"

Me:  At sometime or another, yes, they happen to everyone.

Lil Miss:  So you have accidents too?

Me:  From time to time.

Lil Miss:  So you pee the bed sometimes too?

Me:  (<---deer in headlights.)

What I meant is that everyone messes up.  That everyone does things they don't mean to do.  Lil Miss was still focused on HER accident, but seeing a way to sooth her and make her feel better I took it.

Me:  Yep, I have peed the bed too.

Lil Miss:  But I peed in YOUR bed.

Me:  So?  Do I look or sound like I'm mad?

Lil Miss:  No.

Me:  Am I yelling?

Lil Miss:  No.

Me:  Then you shouldn't worry about it.  It cleans up.  It's all good.

Lil Miss:  Really?  Everyone?

Me:  Yes.

Lil Miss:  Does Daddy have accidents?

Me: (smiling to myself) Yep.

Lil Miss:  Gramma?

Me:  (controlling laughter)  Yep.

Lil Miss:  Really?

Me:  Yep.  You can even ask them.

This seemed to calm her down and after getting her cleaned up, as well as the mattress and changing the sheets, we got back into bed and went back to sleep.  The rest of the night she slept like a log instead of a mini hurricane, safe in the knowledge that her mother pisses the bed from time to time.  Because that's what moms do.  We allow ourselves to be humiliated in order for our kids to save face.  In order for our kids to feel better about themselves.  We will cop to having "accidents"  if it makes our kids feel better.  And I'm not different.  So now, apparently, I pee the bed.

One of the best parts of this whole ordeal though?  Calling my ex and announcing to him, unceremoniously, without so much as a hello, "If she ever asks, you pee the bed"  and then hanging up.  Yeah, that one had him confused for a few days until I was able to actually explain what happened.  

The moral of the story:  If you have to tarnish yourself in your kids eyes so the feel better, sometimes it's the best way to go.  And if you can bring your ex husband and Mother-in-Law down with you, do it!  Why should you be the only adult who pees in their bed?  ;)



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