It's my Potty and I'll cry if I want to....

Yesterday was a day. We have been in the battle of the wills or potty training for some time. We had gone through most of the normal tricks, when he came up with a brilliant idea. I was getting frustrated being the primary "hounder" trying to remind E to use the potty. He took E to the store and let her pick out her own pink potty. He then decided to bribe H to take on the "hounding" job. It was genius really. Using the greed of one to help train the other. He has always had a very good insight to human nature.If she could get her sister to go, then they would both get a treat. It was working really well before all of this happened. Since June it has been an up and down roller coaster. She knows how to go. I told her that she cannot go to school (which she loves) if she goes in her pants, and she has held it really well, until yesterday. I spoke to the pediatrician, and he reminded me that it was her form of control in her world where there are so many things that are out of her control. I know what that feels like. The loss of control, the desperate grasping at things you think you can control. It doesn't mean that it went any easier for me yesterday. As a matter of fact it was a complete disaster. It was picture day in preschool, I was driving for the kindergarten field trip to the pumpkin patch for the other one. We got to the school and E had an accident, then tried to hide it. My frustration was already at it's breaking point, and I had no time to have a patient discussion on the merits of using the potty. I could feel the emotions, the pain, the frustration, the anger, the panic, the feelings of defeat and inadequacy, wash over me. I wanted to scream, I wanted to yell, I wanted to cry right along with her. I wanted to curl up into a ball in the middle of the preschool play yard and just sob. Luckily A was there, she told me she would take care of it. She told me to go with H on her field trip. I left her there with my screaming child, and I went to be with the other one. I worried about her the whole time. As I watched H running around, or felt her arms wrap around me as she launched herself at me, I knew that I had made the right decision, but I still worried. When we finished the field trip and got to pick up E, she was happily playing and running around. She had missed her school photos. I was wiped out. I could not think of running errands or going to the store. We came straight home. They ran around and played, me all the time praying for bedtime so I could just....be. Be quiet, be still, be alone. When it finally came, I collapsed. Emotionally spent. This motherhood stuff, it isn't for sissies, and doing it solo...... "It's my potty and I'll cry if I want to"....or perhaps "Oh my mama told me, There will be days like this ... my mama told me."