Sensitive girl

Veronica is a very sensitive girl — not so much in the emotional sense, although she can be sensitive that way. What I’m talking about is more of a physical sensitivity. She is very aware of textures, and averse to being wet — at all. Even one drop of water on her clothes makes her unhappy and wanting to change. She will tell you immediately if her clothes aren’t adjusted just right (“Too tight. Too tight!!!!”), and absolutely insists on changing her shorts or pants if her diaper has leaked in the slightest. 

Sometimes I worry that she goes beyond normal in these sensitivities; other times I think it’s probably just a control thing. (Veronica does like her control.) 

Two weeks ago, the old clay pipes that drained the water from our kitchen sink, dishwasher, laundry tub and basement drain lost their 114 year fight with the tree roots and disintegrated. (Okay, they may have disintegrated months ago, we just realized it two weeks ago.) Being without laundry with a family of five that includes two cloth-diapered toddlers was not fun. Especially when the time to diagnose and repair the problem stretched out to more than a week. (Thank goodness for our wonderful neighbors, who let us use their laundry several times.)

Because of the lack of washing machine (or, more precisely, the lack of dirty water drainage), we switched to disposable diapers until the problem could be fixed. For the first day, Veronica was fine with the change. It was like an adventure: disposable diapers all day long, not just at night. But by the end of the second day, she was done with the disposables. She wanted her pretty cloth diapers back. 

“No. Other diaper. Blue diaper,” she told me as I tried to put a clean disposable on her. 

“But Roni, we can’t use the disposables because the pipes are broken. Remember?”

“No. Cloth better. Cloth better!” My little environmentalist. (As if that had anything to do with her desire for cloth diapers — it’s all about the colors.)

Today, because we’re starting to get serious about the potty training, I thought I would try out the pull-ups on Veronica. I haven’t quite gotten to the point where I think we’re ready for the cloth training pants (although I’m close), so I bought a package of the disposable pullups, because it’s much easier to pull a diaper up and down when the kiddos want to go potty than to keep taking their diapers off. 

I got the pullup halfway up Veronica’s one leg when she started to freak out. “Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch!!!” So I took it off and tried again, only to get an even stronger reaction. 

I gave up and put the diaper back on — and I may be going out to buy the cloth training pants sooner than I thought. Or maybe it was just because she’s tired and feeling a little off. Who knows? 

(Colin is doing really well on the potty training, and sometimes will even ask to go before he gets his diaper wet. I think if we were to decide to actually make an effort to push the training, he would get it very quickly. We’re just not ready to make that effort yet.)

I am hoping that this super-sensitive phase is just that — a phase that will pass (quickly with luck). And in the mean time, well I guess we’ll just continue to deal with her little quirks.