Potty problems.

So this happened something like two weeks ago, but I still want to get it written down.  I apologize for the delay, but we've had a lot going on lately.

Our diaper change routine was as follows: take Nory into the bathroom, take pants and diaper off, put her on the toilet.  While she sat there, I would take care of the wet diaper, get a clean diaper set up, and laugh at how much she jabbers while she's sitting on her seat.  Then I sit on the edge of the tub and wait for her to tell me when she's all done.

Now, however, the toilet is the scariest thing ever, and she doesn't even like to see her seat on the toilet.  We have a lot of ground to recover.

Nory was sitting on the toilet, jabbering away while I sat on the tub.  Then she got really quiet, pointed across the bathroom, and started making her own hand motion for 'spider' (we don't know the actual sign, but we know what she means).  I looked over, and sure enough, there was a tiny little spider on the floor, like three feet away from her.  I said "yep, that's a spider.'' and started to get some TP to squish it, when it started to crawl towards Nory.  She started *screaming* "No?! No?! No?! No?!" and pulled her feet up on the seat and was waving her hands at the spider (like that was going to stop it).  I squished the spider and threw it in the trash, telling her the whole time that she was fine, it was just a little spider, Mama got it, it's ok, calm down, blah.  She still wasn't ready to get off the toilet, so I sat back down on the tub.

She was just starting to calm down and stop frantically signing spider like that was the most traumatic thing that had ever happened to her, when she suddenly froze and looked down.  She peed!  I took a breath to tell her how awesome it was that she peed in the toilet like a big girl, but before I could make words, she SCREAMED bloody murder and started shaking head to toe.  She doesn't scream that loud when she gets shots, guys.  She put one foot on her step stool and launched herself off the toilet into my arms.  Keep in mind, she's still peeing.  She landed sideways, because I was still too stunned by her reaction to actually do anything.  I sat there holding a screaming, shaking, peeing toddler and all I could do was laugh.  I couldn't make words.  I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard.  It took me forever to get us both calmed down.  She definitely would not sit on the toilet again, so I put her diaper on, changed my sweater, and we went on with our day.

Now...I understand that what happened to her was scary for her.  She saw something strange crawling straight towards her.  She peed into a bowl while sitting very high above the ground with not a lot underneath her.  I get it.  But I also didn't want to act like she should be afraid of the toilet.  So the next diaper change, I put her on the toilet again. 

She sat just long enough for me to pick the wet diaper off the floor and turn around to toss it in the pail.  Then her memory caught up and she flipped out.  She tried to jump off the toilet, but she missed the footstool and fell sideways.  I don't know why, but her arms didn't leave her sides, and she ended up landing on her face before I could grab her.  Cue another round of me holding a half naked screaming toddler (luckily, this time she didn't pee on me) until I could calm her down enough to put a diaper on her.  Poor Nory.

This was almost two weeks ago and she has yet to sit on the toilet again.  I've gone back to just setting it up and letting her look at it.  I feel like we took two steps forward and about eight steps back.  So it goes.