Mean Mommy, Oh How I Hate Thee

This is going to be word vomit mostly because I need to write about this and I feel absolutely horrible feeling this way. And it's about to get REAL, i.e. talk about the dirty stuff us moms have to deal with.

My daughter is 7 years old. She will be 8 in June. Most 7 year olds are mostly self-sufficient in a sense that they can dress, undress, shower, brush teeth, use the bathroom, tie shoes, amuse themselves for any amount of time, yadda yadda yadda.

My 7 year old can not.

Ok, that's not fair. She can dress, but I don't trust her to wear appropriate clothing (summer dress 2 sizes too small on a snow day was her last choice). She can undress but the clothes are still wadded up into balls making laundry so much fun! Take a shower? Yes... sort of. I still have to coach her through the hair washing part. Brush teeth: she's got that down (thankfully!). Tie her shoes: not yet but we are working on it. So many shoes now-a-days have elastic bands or zippers or are just pull ons so her shoe tieing has been delayed but it's getting better.. Amuse herself for any amount of time--she can do this but chooses not to sometimes, usually at the most inappropriate times.

So why did mean mommy emerge? She can not use the bathroom. There's no delicate way to put this so I'm just going to say the truth: She does not know how to wipe her butt.

I've been trying so hard to be patient with her, to teach her how to appropriately do this important hygenic skill and there are times she's a champ. And then she just forgets. No, seriously, that's her excuse... she forgets. How the hell do you forget to wipe your butt? Isn't that common sense?

I've tried being tough. I've tried being nice. I've tried being degrading (yes, I'm ashamed to admit), I've tried being supportive. Now I'm done and I'm totally pissed off.

Of all the things my daughter does that upset me, this is the worst and I am at my wits end. And I completely lost it tonight. What do I do to make her understand how important this is? I've followed her into the bathroom, I've talked her through the proper way to do it. But for the 7 hours she's at school it's out of my hands and that's when it's the worst. She just forgets.

After I sent her to bed this evening--which was at 7pm because I said to her that baby's don't know how to wipe so I'm giving her a baby bedtime--you'd think I burned her favorite toys in front of her. She screamed for over an hour and then after her brother went to bed, she used him as her messenger to come downstairs and tell me things she wanted/needed to tell me. I ended up yelling at my son and he was only trying to be a helpful brother!

I may need psychological help here. I may need an intervention. Someone needs to come here and explain to me and her just how to fix this situation. I don't want my daughter to be the dirty girl at school who stinks all the time. I just need to find some way to harness this anger of mine and find a way to be more productive and get positive--CLEAN--results.

I'm tired of yelling at her about it. She cowers into her room when I sort the laundry because she knows what's coming. I want... no, I NEED to find a way to nip this in the bud (or butt, so to speak!). I'm tired of mean mommy emerging because I really, really hate mean mommy.

Whew, ok. I feel better writing this all out. Not a wonderful blog post, and I'm sorry for that but I need to toss this out into the blogosphere before I completely explode!