Tears on the Internet: Highly Stupid

So there’s a thing about crying on the internet. It lingers.

Long after your problem has dissipated & you’ve moved on, your issue scratches at the back of a server somewhere and begs you to revisit. Usually at a time where you’re more embarrassed than nostalgic.  Suddenly you have issues, you didn’t just have that one issue. It takes but one crafty google search and your whomp bedtime saga gets thrown back in your lap like a shedding dog.

Well, I already own a dog and a cat who shed all over my house anyway. So, here’s more whomp for your Monday morning…

Remember how I said my girls are up north for a month at the greatest free summer camp ever?

Yeah…well…truth? That’s not exactly working out according to my leisurely dramaless plan.

Annika has been having accidents every single day.

She’s always had minor pee accidents (this is partially to blame, laziness as well) but we have had a handle on the odd poop accident for months. (when did I become the poop blogger?) She was pretty difficult to potty train, mostly because she doesn’t care. She basically laughed at every sticker chart, never cared about candy rewards, wasn’t moved by applause or accolades. I could sit her on the potty for 45 minutes and she would give not a care in the world…she would also give not a drop of pee or poop if she didn’t feel so inclined. Shorter story? She still wears a pull up to bed because she basically couldn’t care any damn less about pissing. No amount of anything we’ve ever tried in the 2 years she’s been potty trained/ing can overcome her general “meh” about the process.

Poop accidents have come and gone with her. That’s why I can’t figure out what’s up- why she’s pooping in her pants at least once, sometimes three times a day up there. I mean, come on! Her grandparents are as much at a loss as we are. What started out as frustration for them has ended up literally in tears that they considered sending her home to us. They aren’t. She’s staying. There was a unanimous vote by all the cousins that she stay, my mother in law was up all night stressed at the thought of sending one of her grandbabies back home from a summer that they all look forward to. We’re all kind of mystified at what’s going on. And it gets my heart beating fast and the tears welling up that I’m here and she’s there and this is happening and she’s alone. I mean I know she’s not alone-alone but it’s not me and so that’s pretty much alone as far as my crazy-pants-brain is concerned.

I ask her constantly if she’s scared or sad or lonely…she’s none of the above. Bella says she’s having so much fun. My oldest niece has sat reading stories to her in the bathroom just to help her- imagine that level of love: “here, I’ll sit in this poop closet with you.” So far as I can get out of her- she just can’t stop playing long enough to go. But then it’s not as if she goes and then runs to change herself. No, no. She’ll sit in it all the live long day until someone makes her own up to it.

::deep, heaving sighs::

I’m stressed.

They’re trying a chart system, along with a schedule for her to try to help her out.

I’m just…sad. I’m sad about it. I’m sad that she’s not having the summer trip I envisioned for her. I’m sad that her brain has gone a little haywire and no one can figure out why. I’m sad that I’m not around to try. I’m worried she’s regressing and that it will take us months back home to get her back on track. I’m worried she’s going to cause herself another infection if she refuses to change herself right away. I’m not worried about her level of care, I’m not worried she’s not getting enough love or attention. She’s quite certainly getting all of that. Hell, they love her enough to keep cleaning crap out of her underoos for conceivably 3 more weeks. I’m mostly worried that this seems to have started in her head and I can’t get in there to help her figure it out.

And that’s shitty.

(what? a well-placed pun helps alleviate the heavy.)

I have to be hopeful they’ll figure out a path. I have to trust that she’s listening and that something will click. Otherwise I’ll go crazy with worry. I want her to have such a great summer…this is not what I pictured when I thought of all the ways in which that would happen. The loss of that is heavy on my heart.

**I will delete this post the minute she asks me to. This is for my brain, though it’s about hers. But let’s get real here, I’m not talking about my own butt, and it’s not fair to leave this for her too google and find in her teens.

**EDITED TO ADD: I wrote this Sunday afternoon in a slump. She called Sunday night to say she’d gone all day with no accidents. Hallelujah. I made a big deal of it, obviously. And now I’m making a big deal of it here. Obviously.