Now that they can open cabinets, turn on the TV and direct message Taylor Swift on Twitter, I suppose the last phase of “little kids” is the progression out of diapers during bedtime. To be honest, once we got through general potty training, I really thought we were out of the woods and my job was done. I forgot about bedwetting. (First, I had to confirm that was one word, and second, I learned its medical term is nocturnal enuresis. The more you know!)
The very act of going to the bathroom in the middle of the night is actually fairly fascinating. It’s not something we practice and we’re arguably not even fully conscious when we navigate the darkness and find the porcelain throne. So trying to convey this to a toddler who still believes a giant bunny plants plastic eggs in our lawn is kind of challenging.
We urge going to bathroom before bedtime. We leave the bathroom lights on. I even retrain my brain to take the kids potty during my midnight sessions. But sure enough, I’m tearing the sheets off the bed at 5:00 in the morning and stuffing them into the washer. To be as overdramatic as possible, it’s an exhausting task to constantly remake a bed. The final corner of the fitted sheet, the tucking of the flat sheet, perching the pillows and aligning the stuffed animals. It must be the worst kind of torture in the domestic world.
[Side anecdote: The flat sheet. Is that not the most useless thing we encounter on a daily basis, right up there with our appendix, neckties and single-ply toilet paper? I’m sure there is a hygienic case to be made here, but it’s all moot when that thing becomes balled up at the foot of the bed. And don’t even get me started on the suffocating nature of tucked sheets at hotels. It’s like a very light stranger perpetually sitting on top of you the whole night. If a representative wanted to push for banning top sheets at the congressional level, I would be the first to vote yay.]
But then it clicks. We string together two “dry” mornings in a row, then three, then four. I feel like I’ve scaled Everest, innovating like Einstein and up for the 2022 GPOTY (Greatest Parent of the Year). These are the little wins that give me hope. Maybe they won’t miss curfew. Maybe they won’t want to drive until they’re 30. And maybe they will thank me first after winning that Oscar.
Or maybe they’ll wet the bed tonight, and I’ll have to deal with that top sheet yet again.