Dear Helcat,

You must give me some potty training tips! 

What I can say, as we are about 4 weeks in, the first 3-5 days plan nothing else. Something I wasn’t expecting was how often they just tinkle! We were constantly watching her legs, and it was definitely a two man job for the first 3-5 days. I spent more days with them that week, and as I got there the parents alternated taking showers and one was always with me. Pads, towels and sheets all over their floors, with 3 potties spread throughout their one story home. Also a tip, we started at 10 min intervals, then slowly worked our way to 20, and now she says when she needs to go! but at the intervals, her mom read not to ask her, because if you ask them if they need to go potty they will see no every time, cause they don’t “want” to, it’s like they don’t really understand what that question means. So at intervals we say “we are going to the potty,” and sit there till she does. At each potty station we had a stack of books, half of which were potty training books, to normalize bathroom talk haha. I have never talked so much about such things hahaha.

I did make the decision with my intuition and you are right that is enough to just trust it. 🙂

“There is a concept in teaching. You know the things you know. You know some things that you don’t know. And then you don’t know some things that you don’t know. These are called unknown unknowns. It’s this idea of unknown unknowns that I tend to think of as running on automatic. To change first there needs to be understanding. So it’s really hard to change what you don’t know needs to be changed. If that makes sense? Only when we become aware of a possibility can we work on it.”

Wow this gave me such a vivid memory. My grandpa told me this once about this concept. So on automatic, is that person not acknowledging the unknown unknowns? As opposed to someone not-on automatic, is trying to see them? If this is what you mean I do relate, to times of not having the perceived energy to see more, but then also times of the opposite. Like I feel on the cusp of something I need to know, and am hesitant to make decisions even, because I just know I am missing a certain perspective or knowledge. Actually, now as I express this, I think this is how I live my life, I am in automatic for a while then I hit some sort of wall that doesn’t make sense to me, so then I have to pause and see more of my unknown unknowns before I can move forward. Sometimes I even get anxious, just wanting to know all the things I don’t know before I move forward so not to make a mistake or not live my life to the fullest.

Maybe this is also why I was away from this forum for a while, because I came here in my state of knowing there were unknown unknowns, and You and Anita, helped me see so much. Then I ran on automatic with my new eyes, and now I am looking to see more once again. I wonder if this window of running on automatic, shortens over time and my capacity to see unknown unknowns broadens, and at some point I will be constantly seeing the unknown unknowns, and living as wise as I can..

Ultimately, I have faith that things work out the way they are supposed to.

This reminds me of the book that K is writing, a book of going back in time but trying not to change history and the effects of watching even the bad parts of history play out.

Seaturtle