To feel like my life is mostly faeces, rain, mud, crying and illness?

[Playingvideogames]

Sort of lighthearted but I’m feeling quite low this evening.

I have 2 small children and a lively dog.

The weather has been truly awful for months now. I think we are on something like day 42 of consecutive rain, I lost count after 30 something. The park and dog walking areas are virtually inaccessible. We have also had wind warnings on and off since new year, so the rain is horizontal and a lot of my garden has been ruined.

My youngest is refusing to potty train despite months of teaching him. My oldest picked it up in a few weeks and was dry day and night, but I’m still cleaning up soiled pants multiple times a day. He’s just not getting it. Or doesn’t want to. He’s going through the terrible 2s and refuses to do almost anything, the high pitched screaming and constant tantrums are just wearing me out. The dog now has some kind of gastric thing and is shitting all over the place.

The whole house has been ill on and off since beginning of December - D&V, colds, hand foot and mouth, temperature bugs. It’s relentless.

Every morning I’m woken in the dark at 6am to yet more rain, howling wind and a toddler who I’m determined not to plonk straight in front of the TV but tantrums at virtually anything else.

I’m bloody exhausted. I just want some good weather and for everyone to be well & happy enough to enjoy it. This has felt like a very long very miserable winter and I’ll be glad to see the back of it tbh.

I feel like some kind medieval peasant living in fear of the ‘the fever’ and the weather Gods!

We’re in the NE and I saw the sky today for the first time in what feels like forever - it instantly lifted my mood so wishing you clear skies for tomorrow!

leave the potty training - ds2 wasnt out of nappies until he was 2 weeks past his 3rd birthday, before then he just didn’t seem to get it. That time it was all done in 4 days and never once had an accident since!

Mine are 10 and 6 now and absolute pleasures to be around and barely get ill - it will pass I promise!

Halt the potty training and plonk them in front of the TV. The summer will be here soon and you can take them to the park/woods/beach or just play in the garden - the garden will recover. It's just such a horrible grey time at the moment.

Are you a single parent?

Shelve the potty training, wait a few months for the weather to improve and ds to be a little bit older.
Maybe read a couple of stories in bed in the morning to stay in a little bit longer. Go to the library every week to get some new books.
The rain has been endless.

Stop trying to potty train. If he’s not ready, you’ll just tear your hair out for nothing. He’ll get there in the end.

The rest, I hear you. Stand firm. It’ll pass soon and Spring will be GLORIOUS when it comes!

As PP said for your own sanity pause the potty training. It's easier to get washing dry in thr better weather and he's clearly not ready yet which is fine. Better to remove the stress point for both of you.

I live in a very wet and windy partner the UK so feel your pain and had this during lockdown.

To avoid tv all day try to structure your day with supervised and safe unsupervised activity but in bursts of 30 mins max. Aim from getting up in the morning or after DC1 goes to school, whatever works. Build in breaks, snacks and naps and use stickers when each task complete.

It could be short bursts of cbeebies which is tv but educational, playing with kinetic sand, helping to bake cakes (messy but fun) drawing on the walls (the brown paper from amazon parcels plus chalk works well), etc etc

Build a blanket Fort and get some battery fairy lights and make a den. Turn every little thing into an adventure. Try to.look for the joy/absurdity in it all. That will help you decompress

Any glimpse of of rain get wrapped up and out, even if you get wet and have to shower.

You've got this !

God obviously has a sense of humour, as my dog got a bout of food poisoning or similar while I was potty training too.

I spent a very disproportionate amount the week picking up poo and cleaning my floor.

I agree the endless rain is torture - suffering from serious cabin fever here too.

I think it was actually hailstoning when I went out earlier.

I don’t have the potty training issue but I do have a dog. We love our walks in the woods and they are completely out of bounds at the moment. It’s so depressing, and street walks are just not the same!

That does sound tough.

Maybe don't stress about the TV thing so much? My daughter has loads of screen time when she was little - way more than most people on here recommend. She is now a lovely and highly academically successful young woman..... Same was true for my brother and myself, TV was almost always on in the house we grew up in, and we both have degrees from Oxford University (and in my clever brother's case, a doctorate from Cambridge).

As long as you do other things with them too - talk to them and read to them and take them to see things and so on - which I am sure you do - then sticking the TV on when it's helpful to do so really doesn't do any harm.

Sending solidarity, we’ve had flu, pneumonia , d&v and tonsillitis so far in 2026. Agree about medieval times although I told the doctors DS looks Dickensian so we’re a few hundred years ahead of you here 😅