My Failure as a Mom: Starring the Holy City, mulberries & going to the potty

When life hands you Neuro sparkly and no sleep, you can either punch a wall or decide your life is an indie comedy.

My son is 4 — fully aligned with his autism diagnosis. How this translates is that changes are hard, and whatever tenacious toddler behavior you brush off in other kids, his arrives with a director’s cut, bonus features, and a commentary track. If a typical toddler is stubborn, mine is a tiny method actor who has committed so deeply to the role that everyone else has forgotten it’s a performance.

As the saying goes:

We have no ducks in a row.
We have squirrels.
Squirrels at a rave living their best lives.

I got up at 5.

Showered, did my hair, makeup, deodorant… basically cosplaying as someone who has her $hit together.

Meanwhile, my son — who fights sleep like he’s defending the last remaining stronghold during the Siege of Leningrad — was suddenly, for reasons known only to the universe, fully committed to sleeping well into the morning.
He’s also out of diapers now, which is a big deal and I’m very proud, etc. Honestly, I was firmly in the “by the time he gets to the chuppah he’ll be out of diapers, God willing” camp. But he did it.

And honestly?
Gold star.
Several gold stars.

A whole sticker chart’s worth of gold stars.

Maybe one of those giant novelty stars teachers put on assignments when they’re trying to encourage a student who has clearly been through something.

Like, genuinely. This kid has worked harder at potty training than I’ve worked at most things in my life. There were charts. There were rewards. There were negotiations that felt suspiciously like the Iran deal. There were moments when I found myself discussing bathroom logistics with the seriousness of a UN peace envoy. At one point I was offering incentives with such enthusiasm that if anyone had overheard me they would have assumed I was recruiting for a startup.

But he got there.

Which is great because now we’ve entered the exciting new phase where he is technically potty trained and yet every bathroom trip still feels like a high-stakes diplomatic incident.

You know that feeling when a software update claims to have fixed the problem but somehow introduces three exciting new bugs? That’s where we are.

The diapers are gone.
The uncertainty remains.

Every request to use the potty arrives with the energy of a breaking news alert.

Every refusal arrives with the confidence of a man who has consulted his legal team.

And every successful bathroom trip is celebrated like we just landed a rover on Mars.

But we were late to the shuttle as usual.
About midway out the door, I realized I should probably put him on the potty.

He wasn’t having it.
We got downstairs.
Last chance.
Nope.
We got to the shuttle and, obviously, now he wanted to pee.
Not wanted.
Needed.
The fate of Jerusalem hung in the balance and so did my sanity.

Our usual driver just shrugged.

“Just pee,” he said.

The thing about Jerusalem is that everywhere you go is apparently a heritage site, including behind the corner where I took my child to drop trou.

“Good job!” he announced.
No actual pee occurred.

Back in the shuttle.
And they’re playing Volare.
They play it on 88 FM almost every morning in exactly the same spot on the route, whether I’m late or not.

Volare, oh oh
Cantare, oh oh oh oh

It’s like the universe knows I was meant to be in Italy drinking wine at 7:48 a.m.

Instead, my child needed the potty.

Again.

Oh oh oh oh.

So we stopped at another archaeological site.

Meanwhile, we’ve got the Melavah reading Tefilat Haderech, which is optimism at its absolute finest since we are, in fact, not going anywhere.

The kid is still refusing to pee.

Oh oh oh oh.

The taxi driver stops and picks mulberries.
Literal mulberries — sweet and sour and they stain the cream suit I optimistically chose for my day at the office.

Oh oh oh oh.

I have no tidy ending here — no great lessons to espouse except everything there is a season. And apparently this is the season of potty regression, wildly overestimating how far we’re going to get before I’ve had my coffee… and juicy mulberries.

At least the song on the radio is consistent.
Roll credits. I’d like Kate Hudson to play me in the whimsical indie movie version of my spectacular failure of a morning.

Volare, oh oh
Cantare, oh oh oh oh

At least we have the soundtrack.