Bowel Habits

I may have reconsidered going into the field with a 2&½-year-old freshly potty trained toddler, if I knew how hard it was going to be. The stress of the move has caused a back slide in her training, well the move and the fact that we also have a new baby in the family. The combination was just too much and I think Grace’s only power in this temporarily unstable situation is the power to pee and poo where ever and when ever she can, but definitely not in the potty. The first few weeks were rough and we contemplated putting her back in diapers. We asked her if she wanted to go back to diapers and she said, “no, how about pull-ups?“ This cracked up us, and we searched all over Rio Branco for pull-ups, the transitional diaper to panties. Apparently there is not a need in Brazil for such items. So we’ve toughed it out and I’ve washed my share of panties for the past month. After a month, she is now going pee on the toilet but definitely not poo. With the latter, she has decided that she must either go outside on the lawn or in the shower. But not the potty, despite our offers of jelly beans, cookies, lolly pops, ice cream, basically every sweet treat under the sun!
On the diaper front, it appears that Brazil is about 20 years behind the US in quality of diaper and diaper care. The diaper wipes that they sell here are basically scented wet pieces of wax paper. It just smears the poo around the butt. The diapers leak and the tabs stick to Maddie’s skin if not super careful to fold them in while changing. So, for Christmas, Maddie has put on her wish list, Pampers Lavender scented baby wipes. We can deal with the diapers because they are too bulky for Santa (Matt’s mom) to fly them down to us.
Along with poor diapers comes diaper rash! I’ve had to battle this with Maddie, Grace only had rash once in her diaper career. But the heat in combination with bad absorption, equals painful rashes. Need-less-to-say, Maddie goes naked-butt quite often around here. She’s our streaker, well, Grace is as well. Ever since she’s learned to take off her clothes, I can’t seem to keep them on her. I guess there are worse things. I’m choosing my battles and I choose the “Battle of the Poo”.