It is and it isn’t my fault

 So, Lexi had her two and a half year checkup the other day. 

35", 75th percentile for height

28 lbs., 50th percentile for weight

Ahead or on target with every milestone, perfectly healthy. 

Thank you, God! 

But we did talk about an issue she’s been having: pooping. 

Exciting, right? If you are not a mom and have no interest in poop saga, quit reading now!

Since I started potty training-very casually-by suggesting underwear, putting her in pull up, telling her to use the potty, etc. Lexi has been….well….there’s no nice way to say this: withholding. 

She will hold in her poop for WEEKS, yes, weeks to the point that she’s sweating and crying to hold it in. When she gets to that point, she gets a Pedia Lax and then we have a day of endless poopy diapers. 

So, I brought this up with her pediatrician. And what do you know? This is pretty normal for gifted kids. 

Oops, so, yeah, that’s out there too, her pedi said she’s gifted-but that’s another story. 

Back to the poop. The doctor said that most first borns/onlies who are also bright/gifted get a lot of anxiety around potty training because they are perfectionists! Because she can’t poop in the potty the right way every time and because we’ve been saying that she’s got to start pooping in the potty, not the diaper, she began to withhold…thinking she couldn’t do it perfectly in the potty and the diaper was "bad." 

So, she chose not to go at all. The doctor said we need to just let this go and not even talk about potty training or anything until she’s 3 in March. Her advice was not to mention potties or underwear, pullups or big girl pants, but to ignore it. When she’s holding a poop, ignore it instead of trying to make her go (we’ve tried everything from bribing to being firm). Just ignore the whole situation. If/when she poops in the diaper, change her. Do not talk about it. Do not ask her to poop and do not bring up potty training. 

At this, I felt some relief. You see, my mommy instinct was telling me that she just wasn’t ready for potty training but all my mommy friends were training/had trained their kids between 2 and 2 and a half. So, I felt like a lazy/bad mom for not pushing it with Lexi. 

So, even though my mommy instinct was telling me she wasn’t ready, I pushed it and now she withholds. So, it’s partly my fault and partly not since it’s part of her personality. 

I need to listen to my mommy gut more. 

Now, even before this doctor visit, I began to notice how Lexi was a perfectionist in little ways. For example, she hates the game Memory and won’t play it because she doesn’t like being wrong with her guesses and turning over the wrong card. When she’s faced with a physical challenge that will be difficult she says, "mommy do" or won’t do it. When she’s faced with reading a word that’s hard, she won’t, for fear of getting it wrong. 

I began to see this in a lot of areas: fear of trying something new or hard because she didn’t want to be wrong. 

Is she going to hold herself back in school because she’ll be afraid to be wrong?

Here’s the thing: I am this way. Have been my whole life. If I can’t do it right, why do it. I’m extremely hard on myself when I don’t do something perfectly. So, I was wondering where she got this from since Lexi shares no genes with me. She must be picking it up from the way I interact with her and the world. 

Then today my dad came over to see her. Lexi has these animal measuring rods and she picked one up and started to "measure" Grandpa’s foot. My dad said, "no, not that way, line it up this way." 

And all of a sudden, the lightbulb went off. 

There it was. 

My dad doesn’t accept anything less than perfect, never has. In fact, he often says, "if you can’t do it right, don’t do it." So, I was raised with that and now I’m passing that on to Lexi…as is Grandpa when he doesn’t even allow her to pretend  measure his foot the wrong way!

And I realize now that I am the same way. I correct Lexi a lot, not in a punitive way, but just watching my dad "correct" her play measuring made me see it from a new perspective. If grandpa and mommy are always correcting the way she does things, even silly things like playing, then of course she’s gonna have perfectionistic issues!

So, again, it’s sort of my fault as I’m doing this to her and sort of not as its baggage from my childhood. 

I’m actually not beating myself up over this like I normally would, I see it as a teachable moment for me. I’m going to be more relaxed with Lexi, more open to "wrong" things.

I’m going to just chill out and let her toddler self run wild sometimes. 

I don’t want her carrying the burden of perfectionism like I did/do (and then part of me does since it does usually lead to success in school and life). 

Sigh.