Kid Handbook Rule Number 426: You’ve learned a new skill! After mastering this skill and incorporating it into your daily routine for a while, make sure to completely stop doing it. It messes your parents UP!

We’ve all been there. Your three-year old has been totally potty trained for months. When she has to use the bathroom, she helpfully tells you so, with plenty of time to spare. There’s no need to sort through sodden Hello Kitty underpants when doing the laundry. All is right with the world. “I think,” you cautiously contemplate, “this girl might be potty trained!” You pack away the extra diapers in the basement and get ready for a life without wipes. Then as you emerge from the basement, dusting off your hands in satisfaction, it’s suddenly like there’s a pack of feral dogs in your house marking their territory in every room. What just happened?

Right now we are dealing with a sleep regression. My baby has been sleeping through the night for about a month now. It was one of those things that was so gradual you didn’t really notice it – his 2 am feeding gradually moved later and later until he was sleeping until 6:30 or so straight. And then my husband noticed it and – and here was the big mistake – he commented on it. “I guess he’s sleeping through the night now!” So of course, I was ready for it.

The baby tried to be sneaky about it at first – if I wail at 5:30 instead of 6:30, will mom come in and feed me? (Yes). What about at 4:30? (No.) Really? What about if I cry and moan unrelentingly and then really sweetly make the sign for milk when she comes in to check on me? (Oh, okay. But just this once and just because I’m really, really tired.) But then he made a rookie mistake: He moved it from 4:30 to midnight without any further intervening steps. That, my friends, is not happening.

So we are back in sleeping boot camp at our house until the curse my husband invoked wears off. I would say how long I think that will take, but I know that would mean an extra week of torture. So we will just wait and see.

In the meantime, I will be posting reminders throughout the house not to comment on my daughter’s potty training. And, because I really dislike making unnecessary trips to the basement, that’s all I am going to say about that topic.