Motherhood, Without Performance
Clover is officially potty trained.
What a feat.
If you are a mother, especially of a firstborn, you know the particular kind of pressure that surrounds potty training. The questions arrive all at once: When do I start? How do I do this? What’s the right way? What if I wait too long? What if I start too early? What if I get this wrong? Everyone seems to have an opinion, a timeline, a warning.
I heard them all. Start early. Don’t wait too long. If you miss the window, you’ll regret it. He’ll be too used to diapers. He won’t want change. You’ll make it harder than it needs to be.
So when two came around, I felt the pressure settle in. I tried, tentatively and without confidence. We experimented in the most literal sense, which quickly turned into chaos. It was immediately clear to me that this was not the way for us. I couldn’t imagine pushing him into something he didn’t yet understand. So I stopped. I chose to wait. I chose to trust that when he was ready, he would show me.
In the meantime, I paid attention. I observed him. I let the idea of becoming a “big boy” exist without expectation. We talked about it casually. We tried a few things that went nowhere. Sometimes he treated them like toys. Sometimes he ignored them completely. Nothing stuck, and I let that be okay.
As his third birthday approached, something shifted, not urgently, but clearly. He felt different. More aware. More capable. More interested in his own body and what it was asking of him. This time, I followed his rhythm completely. I explained calmly what the potty was for, without fanfare or pressure. I didn’t hover. I didn’t force. I simply made space.
And then, almost unbelievably, he did the rest.
By the next day, he was using the potty on his own. There was one accident, and then there weren’t. By the second day, he was running to it. Pooping took a little longer, understandably, but when it happened, it happened because he was ready. Soon after, nights followed naturally. Dry mornings became the norm. Just like that, diapers quietly exited our lives.
Watching him cross that milestone was thrilling and heartbreaking all at once. Pride wrapped tightly around grief. Another version of my baby gone. Another chapter closed. I packed away what we no longer needed and made room for what comes next, big boy things, quiet markers of growth that no one warns you will ache as much as they do.
This is what motherhood looks like for me now. Not polished. Not optimized. Not something to perform or perfect. It lives in long nights and early mornings, in the way sleep has changed shape entirely and may never return to what it once was, though I can feel it softening now, little by little, in ways I almost don’t dare name.
Sleep comes in longer stretches. Not uninterrupted. Not deep. But kinder. Murphy still comes to me in the night, half asleep, searching, finding me, holding on as if I am the place where rest begins and ends. Clover, in his own bed now, still finds his way to me too, slipping in so quietly that I don’t notice until morning light reveals him curled beside me. Proof that independence still circles back to safety.
When they are awake, I am awake. There is no sleeping in. No bargaining with exhaustion. When they sleep, I work. I clean. I reset. I prepare the house so tomorrow can unfold with less friction. I have built a stamina around this life, not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I am their lifeline. I simply cannot fall apart.
But it does not come without cost.
I am not the same woman I was before. I miss parts of her sometimes, the ease, the freedom, the body that belonged only to me. Writing that feels almost trivial, but it is still true. And yet, compared to what stands in front of me now, it feels small.
Slowly, very slowly, I am finding myself again. Not by going backward, but by becoming someone new. Through small rituals. Gentle routines. Consistency that feels caring instead of demanding. Learning how to put my children first while still tending to myself in the margins.
The old versions of me have moved on, the careless one, the procrastinator, the one who avoided discomfort. In their place stand the workhorse, the lover, the caregiver, the protector, the truth-teller. These parts of me are steady now. Awake. Here to stay.
Motherhood has thorns. That is undeniable.
But I choose, again and again, to focus on the bloom, the scent of it, the weight of it, the beauty that unfolds even through the hard parts.
Potty training included.
This is motherhood without performance.
Not curated.
Not perfected.
Just lived.
And it is enough.
For the practical details, the tools, routines, and specifics, I share more in my letters.