At a loss

It's been a rough couple of weeks. Dano headed back to class, which is always hard on Lilah Rose. Since we were put on this earth to attend her needs, wait on her hand and foot, entertain, feed, clothe, and nurture her, we have no business pursuing higher education. Last semester, she started slapping me for no reason. We nipped that in the bud pretty quickly and emerged victorious. This year was different.

We noticed gradually that Lilah had gone from 99% potty trained (with the occasional overnight accident) to wetting her pants frequently. Being the nurse that I am, I took a urine sample in to work and dipped it. It looked just fine. Accident upon accident. Laundry load after load. We tried everything. We make Lilah clean it up, take off her wet clothes, and put new clothes on. The doctors stressed the importance of making her take responsibility for the accident. We put her on the toilet frequently. She just smiled and chirped, "I'm done!" before hopping off 3 seconds later. More accidents. We were running out of clothes, towels, detergent, and patience. Mostly Dano. She didn't do it as much when I was home in the evenings. A coworker suggested taking her potty every half hour, to "catch" her before she got too engaged in playing and forgot to go. Dano did it religiously. Lilah revolted against being interrupted every 30 minutes to waste time on the toilet. "I just went!" On one of the 30-minute mornings, Lilah peed on the floor at the 15 minute mark. Dano is a saint for not losing it. One night I went in the bathroom to take a phone call, and when I came out, she was standing there, grinning.
"Her hands are dirty."
"Whose hands?"
"Eloise." Eloise is her doll.
"Why are her hands dirty?"
"Because I peed on them." And she had. She had taken her pants off to pee on her doll. I honestly thought about slapping her. She went through the drill of cleaning up, and I put everything (and Eloise) into the washer. She cried because it was dark in there and Eloise might be scared. I told her if she was scared, it was Lilah's fault. She cried harder. I took it a step further and told her if she ever peed on a doll again I'd give it away to her cousins forever. She sobbed. I felt no remorse. But at the same time, I felt out of control. Like a terrible mother. What kind of kid pees on toys and floors? Dirty kids. The oppressed and abused kids. Handicapped kids. Not mine.

I called the head nurse, who has successfully raised 3 children into adulthood and none of them are still having accidents. She mildly suggested it was a behavior issue. I scoffed a bit. "Well, what goes into her body and when it comes out, that's all she has control over in her world. And what can you do to stop her? Just totally ignore it and leave her alone. The more you push it, the more she'll push back." I had a hard time believing my 3 year old child could be that manipulative, but I suggested it to Dano. The very next day she was still having accidents and he was still frustrated and losing his mind. Lilah's pediatrician came to ask me to do something for her, and I broached the subject.

"We're having a behavior problem."
"You? At home? Oh boy." I gave her the rundown of the past week, her laughing the entire time. "Well, she has you guys pretty much figured out. She's so clever. What you have to remember is, she's craftier than both of you. This is all about control, and right now she has it all." I realized how emotional Dano and Lilah would get at each other over it all and knew she was right. He had said earlier that day he'd never been more frustrated with her.
"So what should we do?"
"Do nothing. Put her back in a pull-up and when you're all three calm, tell her that you realize she's not ready to be a big girl and go on the potty and that's just fine. She can wear a pull-up until she's actually ready to be a big girl. And let it go. Don't talk about it. Don't do anything. Just leave it. 90% of the time, that solves the problem. The only time it doesn't is when the child is school-aged and the schools won't let them do that." I called Dano on lunch and talked to him. "You know, come to think of it, the time she peed on the floor 15 minutes after I took her to the  toilet, it was a few seconds after I told her she couldn't watch another episode of the Munsters." I facepalmed in the middle of the lunch room. Seriously? I had dedicated the past 4 years of my life to growing and nurturing this tiny life, giving it the best of me and her father, all so she could try to weasel her way into an additional episode of the fucking Munsters by peeing on the floor?

Dano put Lilah Rose in a pull-up and we put it all on the back burner. I came home that night and asked Dano how it had gone. Guess who had taken herself to the bathroom the entire day, taking her pull-up off to pee on the potty? Lilah Rose Marie.