Home(pee)bodies

One of the key responsibilities of parenting is socializing my children, in other words, preparing them to live in the world outside of our home (and inside of it, I guess, but they're kind of preparing us for that). I have taken it upon myself (with Dan, of course) to insist Zoe wear pants (or a skirt/dress) when leaving the house. Dan likes Zoe to wear jeans when we go out, instead of the yoga-type pants she prefers to wear around the house. Given the option, I too, would choose jeans for Zoe to wear when we go out. But a two year old doesn't always give you that choice. And it's just not important enough for me to raise a stink over. I have a hard time arguing that jeans are all that warmer than a pair of yoga pants, though the material is somewhat thicker. If it's cold enough, my legs start to tingle whether I wear jeans or yoga pants just about the same. When faced with listening to a whining two year old as we prepare to leave the house, I choose yoga pants.

As Zoe's toilet learning has been progressing, we have moved slowly from her wearing nothing on the bottom, to just panties, to now panties and pants. This is part of the socialization process. It's not much good if you can use the toilet, if you can only use it if you aren't wearing any pants when you feel the urge to go. It's just not accepted in our culture.

This morning Zoe was wearing yoga pants when I suggested we go outside. For some reason, Zoe hates going outside. It could be the cold. It could be that she's resistant to change. It could be that in the past, her whining about getting dressed to go outdoors and Simon's whining about being ignored while Zoe's getting dressed combined drove me crazy, which made me miserable about taking two whiny kids outside to throw around snow, because there's not much else good that you can do with it in the middle of an Edmonton winter. "Let's go outside and play in the snow, Zoe!"

"No, I just want to stay inside."

Something is wrong with my toddler. Or me. Aren't children supposed to be begging to go outside and play with their mommy? "Why can't we do anything fun?" Isn't that refrain supposed to come from the child, not the parent? Clearly, Treehouse and I have made the indoors a far too comfortable place.

It takes some serious convincing to get our little Zoe to leave the house happily. There are two surefire destinations for which Zoe will gladly don shoes: Keegan & Ryann's house and church (where Keegan & Ryann will be). By the time we get to the car and get going (wherever it is), she seems to have forgotten her troubles with leaving the house and is herself again. She usually has fun doing whatever it is we've decided she needs to come along and do, but it's so miserable to get going. What is up with that? It makes me wonder if we should start lying to her and telling her that we're going to church whenever we need to leave the house. How long would that work for, you think? Will she ever believe me again if I start lying to her now?

Dan took her out early this evening to run some errands. I managed to convince her to go with him because she needed to get a birthday gift for her friend Keegan. So out she went in her panties and yoga pants (much to her Daddy's chagrin) without much hassle. I received a phone call after about an hour of them being gone. Zoe had told Dan that she had to pee, they went to the bathroom at Toys R Us and she peed on the big toilet (usually she only uses the little potty at home)! No accident!!! Wahoo! Pretty good news for our homebody potty learning girl!

How long would this girl trust a lying mommy?