My humility baby (don’t listen to my advice)

Can we talk about potty-training for a minute?  If you’d like to get my wisdom I’d love to tell you about my child who on his second birthday I put in  Thomas the Tank Engine undies and he never wore another diaper.  I’d also like to tell you about my other child who at 19 months started telling me when she needed to go potty and rarely wet a diaper once I started listening to her.  I could give you lots of hints and tricks to make your potty-training experience more smooth and enjoyable.  I could make you think I have this situation totally figured out and if you listen to me you too will have a perfectly potty-trained child by the time they’re blowing out that second birthday candle.  But I would not like to talk to you about my child that I have been potty-training for SIX MONTHS with little success.  As a potty-trainer with this child I have been an absolute failure.  I like to call this child my humility baby.

Whenever I am tempted to offer little tidbits to other moms about how to do things the “right” way- whether it’s getting your toddler to eat his veggies, stay in the bed during naps, or to never throw a fit I just remember my humility baby.  He has taught me that in so many areas as much as parenting is about me and how I do things, it is equally about my child and his natural bent.  All of the parenting magic I seemed to have with my other kids is totally useless on this child.  This helps keep me in a good and humble frame of mind when I’m offering a little wisdom to another mom who is struggling.  It’s so easy to think we have the answers for everybody else and unintentionally hurt the very mom we intend to help by acting like if they just did it our way things would be perfect.  I wish everybody could have a humility baby who helps keep life in perspective, although I imagine God does this for each of us in the way we need it most.  Next time I’m tempted to offer the random stressed mom in the grocery store a little piece of advice, I’ll be sure I’m remembering the little one in my grocery cart who teaches me that I’ve still got a lot to learn.