I’ve been wondering when the move was going to affect Lotte: how the move was going to affect her sensitive little mind and body.

“She’ll be fine.”, everyone told me.

“Kids are so resilient.”, they all said.

And she was! She was so psyched for her big new room and the kitty and the deer and the peeping frogs and the all of it. Her first month and a half was spent by my side as we explored our new hood together, decorated the house and tried to make sense of the drastic change in our environment. Where there were once hoards of people, there are now chipmunks. Where everything was once a few footsteps or scooter strides away, we’re now in the car. ALL THE TIME. 

She often brings up her friends from Brooklyn and talks wistfully about them: even names I had barely heard her mention while we lived there.

“Simone is so silly!” she kept randomly exclaiming about a girl from her old preschool that I don’t even think she hung out with much. It was as if she was already starting to forget her old life as a 3-year-old, and her mind was trying desperately to hang on to those memories and faces and events. I assured her that she would always have some of the old friends, even get to visit some of them, but that she was also going to make new friends now and oh my gosh wasn’t that so exciting?!?

In the middle of April I was fortunate enough to find a spot for her in a super charming local Montessori school. As I watched her fearlessly and excitedly walk up the stairs to the new classroom with her “classroom slippers” and tote bag that first day, barely glancing over her shoulder to tell me “Goodbye, mama.”, I let out a huge sigh. Everything was going to be okay! Everything was falling into place! I no longer felt like a psycho killer was stalking me from the woods surrounding our home! We would find a way to survive without a banh mi place on every corner! We could do this! Everyone is happy now!

Until they weren’t. Lotte’s new Montessori school is a far cry from the play-based preschool she left in Brooklyn, where the kids were coddled and praised for every wooden truck they placed back in the toy bin, and every crumpled up piece of paper they threw in the trash. This is a big-time big-kid school where they’re expected to be much more independent- by independent I mean putting on her shoes and coat by herself, not writing a dissertation- and my girl definitely felt some frustration. It’s entirely my fault- we babied her. Come on, though…she IS a baby, guys, she’s not even four.

Regardless, by week 2 she didn’t want to go back to school. She whimpered. She cried. She said she “didn’t like to do work”. She said someone shushed her when she was crying and she couldn’t go to school anymore. All these were manageable with a pep talk and a pat on the back. Then, though, she started peeing.

Have you ever heard of Pollakiuria?

I hadn’t, either. According to this document from the University of Chicago

Pollakiuria, also called extraordinary daytime urinary frequency, is a benign condition defined as frequent small voids in a previously toilet trained child with no polyuria or evidence of infection.  The condition is self-limited with an average duration of 7-12 months… Frequency may occur only in a stressful environment and improvement in symptoms following counseling or resolution of the stressful situation has been reported. Most frequently described psychogenic triggers are school problems, academic difficulties or bullying, perceived threat to self or a loved one. Parental divorce. Death of a family member, relocated to a new school, birth of a sibling.

All of a sudden, Lotte started peeing. A lot. It was becoming more and more difficult to leave the house because after her usual bathroom pit stop, she would emerge with a panicked look on her face, exclaim “Pee is coming out again!” and disappear behind the closed-door again. Over and over. OVER AND OVER, usually about 10 times in the hour. It happened before leaving for school, play dates, playgrounds, parks, swim class, soccer class and walks. What did I do?

I got mad at her.

Terrible right? What kind of shitty mother would get frustrated at something like this? Here’s the thing, though:

It WAS frustrating. It was frustrating because I knew there was nothing physically wrong with her. Five minutes after arriving at school (and after 10 trips to the potty): she was fine. Five minutes after arriving at every play date and playground: she was fine. It seemed like a new way of avoiding things or some sort of bizarre psychological tick that, quite frankly, freaked me out. We already had one crazy in this family, and that was me. We couldn’t handle another me. I couldn’t handle another me. I felt terrified and annoyed.

Last Saturday Pete had to go into work for a few hours, and Lotte peed 28 times. I counted. Sensing this was something beyond my control, fearful this was something I didn’t know how to help: we took her to the emergency room. I prayed for a UTI. Isn’t that the worst? I desperately wanted my daughter to be diagnosed with a painful infection. At least then it would be something concrete, something easily fixed with a few pills and a lot of water. I wanted someone to tell me my daughter wasn’t losing her sweet little mind.

In the hour and a half we were in the er, Lotte asked to pee about 7 times.

The test results all came back negative, and the doctor told us her body was just reacting to the stress of the move and her new school and the new EVERYTHING.

*Heart punch*

Essentially, it was our fault. We were the ones who plucked her out of her cozy comfortable life in NY, and her mind and body were having a hard time catching up. She felt frightened. She felt anxious. She felt confused. Her friends were gone. Her playground was gone. Her grandparents were gone. Her favorite cookie shop and pizza place were gone, and she didn’t understand why, so her body was having this debilitating reaction.

We felt soul-crushing guilt like the worst people in the universe, and decided to just accept it. If she wanted to go to the bathroom nine million times a day, so be it. This would pass. Surely getting annoyed by her constant pee parade wasn’t helping the matter. After all, it was only pee- it’s not as if she was ripping out her eyelashes or tearing off her toenails. So, for a few days, we supported it, and you know what?

As quickly as the madness came, it left. Just like that. Gone!

My heart still aches with worry for her, but I think it always will. That’s what moms are for.

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Linking up with Shell at Things I Can’t Say.