"Is that chocolate, or poop? Here, let me smell."
If you've ever uttered those words, you're either a mom, or someone who is entirely too curious for their own good. (If it's the latter, please go get help).
As a mommy, I bear many titles. "Expert of all things poop" is not one I thought I'd ever add to my collection, but alas, here I am. I'm assuming it started the day I changed my first diaper three years ago. As the weeks passed, what was once considered taboo became a regular topic of dinnertime conversation, right down to the nitty gritty details- consistency, color, smell, volume, and gag-factor. "It was so weird. Kinda orange, and I could see little chunks of sweet potato...oh, can you pass me the salad dressing?"
Ella pooped. I changed her. Wash, rinse, repeat. Several hundred times. It was often barely noteworthy and as long as it was contained in her diaper, pretty tolerable. But God must have sensed that life wasn't interesting enough for me, and that maybe, I needed that little extra push out of my OC comfort zone. So, he gave me a beautiful little boy, who I'm convinced is also part canine. There is nothing this kid won't touch, pick up, and then immediately proceed to put in his mouth. Nothing. So when I walked into his room one afternoon after his nap to find little brown smear stains on his crib rails and mattress, I feared the worst. Then gagged. The next morning, there was more of the same, now including small pellets around the floor of his crib. When I fussed at him, he simply clapped his hands and laughed at me. Looking back now, I think there might have even been a hint of pride in his baby blue eyes. This, I was not prepared for. Poop was supposed to stay in the diaper. Maybe sometimes, it's allowed to come out, but only if they're sick. I realized I was going to have to step up my game in order to keep from becoming a daily pooper-scooper. It's been a few weeks now, and after searching to high heaven for onesies in a size 3T along with threatening the use of duct tape, I think he's finally gotten the message: Please unleash your creative side, son, but by all means, CHOOSE A DIFFERENT MEDIUM.
I had barely gotten Milo's poop art under control before we entered full-fledged potty-training mode with Ella and I mentally shifted gears. Now, it was time to learn the art of poop. You know, how to coax it out naturally and try to make it sound fun, maybe even appealing. Ever had those moments when you say something and pray to God that you're not being secretly recorded? If you haven't had any of them before you start the potty training process, you'll experience a host of those moments while you sit endlessly on the bathroom floor beside your preschooler, praying to see just one floater. Just one.
This week, I actually personified poop:
"Poop is nice. He (She?) wants to come out and go to the party in the potty."
I found myself bringing every topic of conversation back around to poop:
"Mommy, when birds make nests in the top of trees, do the nests fall out?"
"No, they stay up in the tree and the birds can go to sleep there. And speaking of birds, do you know what birds like to do?
"What?"
"They poop."
We drew pictures of potties and pictures of poop. I pretended not to hear Ella when she told me she had named her poop "Mr. Man."
We made up songs about it. In case you're wondering, there are lots of words that rhyme with poop: soup, stoop, loop, croup, dupe, group, coop, hoop, goop.
I bought stock in every brand of dried fruit that Ella would eat. I stuffed her silly with craisins, dried mangoes, prunes, high fiber cereals, apples, whole wheat toast and apple juice. I watched her like a ticking time bomb. How was she NOT going? It had been three days and I knew she was miserable.
She sat on the potty and I read her books. We waited for poop. I painted her toenails. I painted my toenails. I made funny poop sounds with my mouth. I made toilet paper origami. I offered chocolate chips. Cookies. A trip to Target to buy a new toy. I told her pooping was so much fun, it was almost like riding a carnival ride. We sat. And sat. And nothing.
When I felt like we weren't making any progress, I found comfort in the wise and poignant words of a saying that has become one of my parenting mottos:
"Sh** happens."
And in this case, quite literally, it was going to happen- sooner or later. We would wait it out. Keep our chins up. Drink apple juice and pear nectar. Then a few mornings ago, unbeknownst to me, Ella wandered into the bathroom by herself while I was getting Milo his breakfast. Minutes later, an enthusiastic screech pierced the air: "Mommy!!!!! POOOOOP!!!!!"
Never were two more glorious words spoken. We looked in the potty. We danced and jumped up and down. Milo came in and started clapping (God love that kid. He had no idea why, but he wanted in on the fun).
"It looks like a whale!" she exclaimed.
I stared at it for a moment, as if trying to play some twisted version of the "shapes in clouds" game.
"It DOES look like a whale," I agreed emphatically.
I'm aware that in that very minute as I stood studying my daughter's "accomplishment," I had once again become that mom I said I would never be when I was "pre-mom." Suddenly, I was the Clorox wipes commerical Mom. The mom who blogs, tweets, and posts updates about her child's bladder and bowel-emptying abilities. The mom who imagined shapes out of her kid's excrements.
But I wouldn't change a thing about it. We do crazy, inconceivable, yes- even gross- things in the name of building our children up and setting them up for success.
I'm proud of you, Bug (even though I know one day you're going to despise me for writing about this). :)
