[Author’s Note #1: It’s not lost on me that a different — less appropriate — word choice would make for a better titular pun.]
[Author’s Note #2: Lots of poop in this piece. Better skip it if you’re squeamish.]
[Author’s Note #3: In this story, I use the hyphenated terms “potty-training” and “potty-trained”. This is slightly nonstandard, but after some consideration, I decided that the usage adds some clarity in a piece rife with “potty” language.]
Last year, we potty-trained a fully- or partially-nude Borealis for what ended up being most of the summer. (You can read more about the ordeal in Poop Goes *IN* the Potty.)
Bo was about twenty-eight months when we [truly] commenced potty-training, and it was quickly apparent that we should have started sooner. I kept holding off in the hope that Bo would suddenly start speaking — which, theoretically, would contribute to a friendlier and more communicative process.
However, when we finally got underway, Bo was still [almost] nonverbal — and worse, he had already developed poop shyness. Sure, poop shyness is an important social disposition, but it’s also an inconvenient impediment to potty-training.
[Note: Incidentally, Bo’s speech actually developed after his successes in potty-training. (For reference, Colorado Mom Uses This One Trick to Get Nothing Done — the sequel to Poop Goes *IN* the Potty — was the first post in which Bo had a major speaking role.) We theorize that he needed the confidence boost from potty-training before he could successfully tackle his speech-related anxieties.]
Anyway, long story short — we got through it with Borealis, but I didn’t want to deal with the same issues with Australis. So, true to my nature, I swung to the opposite extreme: potty-training earlier, rather than later.
So, a day after turning eighteen months old, Aza officially enrolled in Potty-Training 101.
Admittedly, it wasn’t my intent to start potty-training at 2pm on a Friday. Our plan had been to get a fresh start on Saturday morning — but then Aza caught sight of those frilly Gerber training pants, and there was no dissuading her. I took off her diaper and helped her into the training pants — an action which was, admittedly, counterproductive to our goal of “naked baby” potty-training.
However, it was soon time for her nap, so she wore those training pants for all of fifteen minutes before they were replaced with another diaper. I nursed her down, then retreated to the living room to get Bo set up for his “quiet time”. (He has, unfortunately, completely stopped napping.)
Taylor came home early that day — during Aza’s nap — so I had a chance to catch him up to speed: namely, we’re-doing-this-now-so-get-onboard.
Thankfully, he proceeded to get onboard, so we presented a united front when Aza woke up. We stripped her down, and then we… waited.
And waited, and waited, and waited.
The girl simply would not pee. Or poop.
During five hours of naked time on that Friday, Aza peed just once — while she sat in her highchair for dinner. She, of course, peed in her diaper that night.
The next day was much the same. We had cleared our entire schedules — as in, one of us was watching Aza at all times. So, we were acutely aware that she peed twice that day: once in the morning, and once in the afternoon. (Oh, and a pee during her nap too.) No poops.
To say that we were surprised would be an understatement. During potty-training, Borealis peed practically every thirty minutes. Heck — he still does that! The kid’s bladder is the size of a jellybean.
In contrast, Australis flexed her heritage by clamming up all bodily emissions. (A helpful quirk of my mom’s side of the family.) Much to our amazement, she already had down the hold-in-your-pee-and-poop part of potty-training.
However, that potty abstinence was clearly uncomfortable. She kept grimacing dramatically and freezing mid-step; nevertheless, every time we set her on the potty, she immediately reengaged her defenses. No intentional pottying for her!
Out of the handful of times Aza urinated that weekend, we caught only a couple, midway through. More ended up in her high chair or bedtime diapers. We caught zero poops, primarily because there were zero to catch.
By Sunday night, though, it was obvious that a bowel movement was imminent. (She had skipped four normally-scheduled poops over forty-eight hours.)
That evening, Taylor and I generally left Bo to his own devices in an attempt to cover Aza from all angles. We had at least a dozen false alarms — bowel movements aborted as soon as her bottom touched the potty.
Finally, however, we caught a poop mid-exit. I quickly stuck her on the potty, and — success! — she completed her bowel movement in the correct place. That was the first time her poop landed in the potty.
Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, she pooped on me — and then again, in her subsequent bath. So it wasn’t a binary switch, but that was the first major step toward getting Aza potty-trained for poop.
[Note: None of those poops are the ones to which the title refers.]
Taylor went back to work the next morning, and I settled in for a drizzly week of mixed results. The primary issue was the infrequency and unpredictability of Aza’s pees and poops. She’d perform the pee-pee dance (or poopy dance) for almost an hour before finally releasing. Sometimes I’d catch it; sometimes I wouldn’t. Either way, Taylor came home each night to an exhausted and cranky wife, plus two exhausted and cranky kids.
We were all ready for that week to be over.
That Friday night — a full week into potty-training — we had a big breakthrough. We went for a family walk through Mines Park (doing reconnaissance a la The Dumpsters Are Calling and I Must Go). Not surprisingly, Aza held in her pee the whole time — but not for lack of opportunity. (We had brought along the travel potty.)
When we got back to the house, however, Aza intentionally emptied her bladder into the house potty. We were thrilled — and so was Bo, because I’d made the command decision to reward both of them for all of Aza’s potty successes. (They each get a Peanut Butter M&M.)
Finally, she was developing the ability to pee on command. Coupled with an increased awareness of her own bodily processes, Aza performed admirably throughout her second weekend of potty-training.
In contrast, Taylor and I did not perform so admirably. During the previous weekend, we had been able to watch our daughter virtually without interruption — but this weekend, we had to do all the tasks that we had been neglecting for a week. As a result, the weekend was once again hit-or-miss — but, with regard to pee, it was more hit than miss.
And then, far too soon, it was time for Taylor to go back to work.
Monday morning was a success — one pee on the potty, and no accidents. I split leftover coq au vin with the kids for lunch, then left them to their own devices for a little while. After all, it was past time to switch over Aza’s wardrobe. (Admittedly, this was poor timing on my part. Sure, my daughter’s clothes were getting a little snug, but I ought to have delayed until I had an extra set of eyes.)
I periodically checked on my kids, eventually setting them up with two just-add-water paint books. The wardrobe changeover was nearly complete, but I needed my luck to hold for a tiny bit longer.
I was down to the just leggings when I realized I hadn’t prompted Aza to do a post-lunch pee. I set down the leggings, paused my podcast, and went out into the hall.
And that’s when I saw Poopie #1. [Finally, addressing the title of this piece.]
Ok, wait — I didn’t *immediately* see the poopie. What I first saw was naked Aza, running down the hallway toward me. She grabbed my arms with sticky fingers, and… *then* I saw the poop.
What I had originally mistaken as chocolate or dirt was too smelly to be either. My daughter’s hands were actually coated with poop, and I suspected that the poop was, in fact, her own. Her legs, arms, and butt were also streaked with excrement, as were her feet — especially her feet. A fetid little trail of footprints led back to the living room.
I was caught embarrassingly flat-footed. “Aza! No! Aza — oh my gosh! Wait, ok — no — ok, let’s get you cleaned off.”
I yelled toward the living room. “Don’t touch Aza’s poopie!” Bo didn’t respond.
I carefully picked up my daughter and walked her back to the bathroom, shouldering open the door and kicking aside the shower curtain. I set her in the tub and sprayed her down. [Note: It was neither the first nor the last time we’ve done this.] Aza shrieked angrily as I aimed the water at her bottom, where poop still nestled between her cheeks.
Eventually, my daughter was clean (ish). I wrapped her in my big, fluffy towel and went to inspect the damage to my house.
It was worst than I had expected. (But, still better than it could have been.) Poop smears were visible on the stool, potty, floor, and walls. But, there was no obvious source of said poop. In the midst of it all, Bo still sat at the kids’ table, blithely painting away.
“Bo!” I barked. “What happened here!?”
Startled, he looked up at me and blinked innocently. “Aza made a poopie on the carpet.”
I glanced toward the carpet and, sure enough, there were two telltale brown spots. But, still no sign of the *actual* poop. So I asked, “What happened to Aza’s poopie?”
“The puppy ate it.”
Gorge rose in my throat as I turned toward our dog. “Is that true?”
She neither affirmed nor denied the accusation. She simply licked her lips and gazed hopefully at Australis.
“Ewwwwww.” I moaned. “Ok, you know what? Maybe you should go outside. Ew. Outside, come on.”
I quickly let our dog outside, then returned to the living room. The scene was just shy of one of those Roomba nightmares, but I was slowly able to piece together the clues.
This is my final guess at the events of that afternoon: While I was hanging up her clothes, Aza pooped on the dining room table rug. Unaware that feces had appeared beneath her, she stepped backwards and encountered something squishy underfoot. A manual investigation of said squishy substance soon followed. Lo and behold, the substance was actually poop — which, to a toddler, feels remarkably like Play-Doh. (Our dog, of course, quickly consumed what remained of the excrement.) After some “fun”, Aza realized that she didn’t really want poop on her hands, and attempted to wipe off the offending substance on her body and legs — a tactic which proved only mildly effective. Suddenly remembering that poop is supposed to go in the potty, she sat down and, to her chagrin, produced nothing. She stood back up and leaned against various objects before finally deciding to seek my assistance.
Admittedly, I’ll never know *exactly* what happened to create that scene, but I’ll never forget my feeling of failure and despair upon its discovery. Wow, this is actually the worst poop situation we’ve ever had, I noted detachedly. Even worse than in those two blog posts that have poop-driven narrative arcs. (Both Poop Goes *IN* the Potty and Colorado Mom Uses This One Trick to Get Nothing Done prominently feature feces as a plot device.)
I felt like I needed to cry about the situation, so I forced out a few tears. Alas, my heart wasn’t in it: tears would have to wait for later. For now, I just set a still-towel-wrapped Aza on the couch, turned to Borealis, and asked, “Do you want to watch Little Baby Bum?”
(In these rare cases, plopping my kids in front of the TV is the only acceptable course of action.)
While Bo and Aza watched their weird British show, I went into action with the Lysol. It wasn’t long before I realized that I was going to need help. (I can never remember how to set up the steam cleaner.) Taylor was already supposed to come home early that day, but I called to ask if he could move up his timeline and leave immediately. Thankfully, he said yes.
I went right to work sanitizing the visible signs of poop. As I worked, I fought against the feeling that this situation was so unfair. Here I was, doing something for my child, and how does said child repay me? By leaving poopy foot prints all over the floor. And where was Bo during all of this!?
“Hey, Bo. What are you supposed to do when Aza has a poopie?”
He squinted pensively at me. “Tell Mommy?”
“Yes! Why didn’t you tell me!?”
Bo looked at me blankly — as though, you know, I was attempting to shift some blame onto him.
I sighed. “Alright, I’m sorry for that. It’s not your fault. And I’m also sorry for yelling. But in the future, what will you do if Aza poops on the floor?”
“Tell Mommy!”
[Note: To his credit, Borealis is now hyper-vigilant regarding his sister’s bowel movements. But, I think that has more to do with the reward of chocolate than his desire to be a good citizen.]
By the time Taylor got home, I had completed everything but the floors. I was in the midst of using Lysol on the poopy footprints dotting the hallway, and the carpet waited ominously for Taylor.
I looked up at my husband, and *that* was when the tears came.
“Why are you crying?” Taylor asked. “We’re going to get this cleaned up right away, babe.”
“I just… It’s just….” I explained articulately.
Taylor: <grunts uncertainly>
“Like, this is the biggest failure in potty-training. Do you think she’s just too young? Eighteen months is super early. What if we were just wrong?”
Taylor tried to pull me into a hug, but I danced out of the way. “Poop, remember?”
“Right. Well, we’re not wrong. She’s getting there. This was a setback, but by no means an outright failure. I understand it’s frustrating, but we had similar issues with Bo.”
“Never this bad!”
Taylor chuckled. “True, never this bad. Now let’s get this finished up.”
And with that, it was back to work. I finished first, so I got Aza down for her nap and Bo set up for quiet time — books, blanket, milk. Taylor completed his steam-cleaner shortly thereafter.
In the ensuing peace, you would never guess at the disaster zone that had been present mere minutes before.
The rest of that week was full of ups and downs — within our extended family, our Bible study, and (of course) Aza’s potty-training. The week was also unseasonably rainy, which was problematic for “naked baby” status. You can’t really bring your nude kid outside when it’s 50°F and 100% humidity.
Even so, we took advantage of the low-UV days to get outside sans sunscreen (which, you might remember, is basically the bane of my existence). And, we counterbalanced the fully-clothed outdoor time with some naked indoor time.
By Friday morning, I was extremely ready for the weekend. But, Taylor still had eight hours of work left, so I was out of luck.
I hustled Bo and Aza outside early, before the haze burned off. Bo, of course, dumped out the chalk and then neglected to play with any. Aza picked up two big pieces and proceeded to give each an occasional nibble, intermittently using them to draw on the cement.
Meanwhile, Bo and I wandered over to the untamed hedge along our northern fence. The lilacs were blooming — barely — and I realized that they desperately needed a good pruning… as did the various chokecherry bushes, crabapple trees, and [invasive] Virginia creeper vines that comprise the hedge. It was past time to clean up the border, and I decided to delay no longer.
I retrieved the shears and went to work on the mess. I had generated quite the slash pile when my mommy senses started tingling.
“Aza?” I shouted. I dropped the shears and sprinted over to the patio…
… where Aza was just standing up from pooping on the potty — completely and totally on her own.
Poopie #2 for the win.
The contrast between those two poop incidents could hardly be more stark.
Well, there is one strong similarity — in both cases, I was embarrassingly absent. That’s not always — or even usually — the case, but my absence revealed the marked difference in Aza’s behaviors. Over the course of a workweek, she went from “spontaneously pooping on the carpet and tracking it throughout the house” to “intentionally pooping on the potty and waiting for me to wipe her”.
The days since have continued to see improvement. She’s now *basically* fully potty-trained while naked, so we’re working on the more challenging task of “how to pull up your dress and not pee all over everything you’re wearing”.
Yeah… That one is still a work in progress.