Poop Art & the Art of Poop

"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). :)

  

"Good Part, Sad Part"

For the past several months, we've been doing "good part, sad part" of our days at the dinner table.  It took a little while to catch on, but now it's a regular thing with our family and Ella is often the one who initiates the conversation, which I love.

After a particularly rough afternoon and naptime debacle,  we sat around the table and Ella said, "Mommy, ask me what my sad part of the day was."  (Usually, she asks one of us first, so this was kinda different).

"Okay, what was your sad part today, Bug?"

"When I was crying in my room and you locked the door.  I really wanted you to come in and wipe my face.  If you had just come in and wiped my face, I would have gone to sleep."


{Did you hear that sound?  That would be the sound of a knife ripping through my heart}.




She said it just like that, too.  I've always known that she's an old soul, but she sometimes speaks with such concision and maturity that it frightens me.  I looked at Jake, searching his eyes for some kind of response of my own.  Then, his mouth turned down a little at the corners.  Crap.


Yes, she had thrown another of her stellar tantrums.  And yes, I had locked the door because I had warned I would do so if she continued to get up.  From downstairs, the muffled sobs really all sounded about the same, all of them intermittently laced with "mommy.." and "come in here..." and "nap.." and well, I just tuned it out.   Eventually, it got quiet and I had patted myself on the back for sticking it out and not giving in.   Not only did I need to follow through with what I had told her would happen, but, whether right or wrong, I also felt a certain amount of entitlement to my own rest time.  

But something about the way she spoke at the table last night broke me.  After a few minutes, I realized why.  It wasn't about "discipline versus no discipline" or because I felt that I shouldn't have followed through on what I had told her I would do.  Instead, her words made me realize that often, I treat parenting as a "cause-effect" relationship, not always a "mother-child" relationship.  It's easy to do, especially in the three's, with all of it's button pushing, negotiations and boundary-drawing (then erasing, then re-drawing).   But Ella doesn't recognize this yet.  The only difference between these two scenarios, to my three year old, is a comforting snuggle or the wiping of tear-stained cheeks, even if those tear-stained cheeks had been warned, multiple times.   So, while it didn't seem like much to me, it was HUGE to her.  

I sometimes forget, from high atop my mountain of discipline justifications, to climb down and see things from her vantage point.

"Oh.  Oh....Bug, I'm so sorry about that.  I didn't know that's all you wanted.   Mommy will listen better next time, okay?"




Her face instantly brightened up.  (Man, I'm so thankful she doesn't know how to hold a grudge).  "It's okay Mommy. I know you didn't mean it....  She looked down at her plate, then back up at me.


Hey, mommy??"  




I winced just slightly, waiting for her to twist the knife a little more.


"If I eat all my pasta, can I have some mango ice cream??"






And suddenly, we're on to the good part of our day.  Just like that.   This is life with a three year old.

Just Keep Swimming

I honestly can't remember when I last wrote a post.  (bad, bad K).   It usually only takes 3 or 4 days of no writing or some other creative output to cause me to shrivel up like, well...like my plants in our brown front yard.  I've been throwing all of my spare time and energy into starting up my photography business and wow, is it overwhelming.  Fun, but overwhelming.  Between reading blogs and tutorials, studying rules of exposure, composition, color, etc., researching marketing and branding strategies, and working with Jake to launch a new website and corresponding blog, there just hasn't been much time to do anything else that I love.

But admittedly, I haven't been the best at managing my time.  When I first decided to pack in the piano-lesson teaching and shift my artistic gears into neutral, I figured I would just take things day by day.  I'd work from home, when I could.   I heard and believed rumors of phenomena like napping children and creative space.  Oh, and energy (how silly of me).  A few years from now when my babes are in school, I'll probably shed a tear or two (they miiiight just be happy ones) and be grateful to have had these precious, fleeting and frustrating years with them.  But I also think I might find myself standing in my silent kitchen, which for once isn't littered with tupperware lids and bread crusts, and think, "I saw that going differently in my mind."

The truth is, I'm not good at making choices.  Never have been.  Even now, standing in the makeup aisle of Target can nearly give me a panic attack.   Jake learned early on in our relationship to never, ever ask me where I wanted to eat.  I'd change my mind seventeen times before we finally landed on a restaurant and by that point, we were both too crabby and hungry to talk to each other for the first half of our meal.

But those are just little things.

There was the time I lost a scholarship to VCU because I decided at the very last minute that I wasn't sure I actually wanted to major in music anymore.  I decided that maybe I'd like to write, be a journalist. So I picked a track in mass communications. And precisely one semester later, I was back in the music office filling out a change of major form.

Seven years and one Bachelor's Degree in Music Education later,  I'm now using the years I spent holed up in musty practice rooms to....um, launch my photography business.  The piano is sitting dormant in the corner of our dining room collecting dust, and if given the choice, I'd still grab a pen and paper before I'd even think of parking my butt on that piano bench.  I've also decided that if Ella or Milo should tell me they want to major in music, I will probably have to bite clear through my own tongue to keep from saying anything.  It will be their choice, not mine.  (Repeats over and over).

And it's ironic, how much I hate having to choose, because I find myself in a season of life where I'm having to make more choices than ever before.  Some I make all by myself.  Some, life makes for me.  (I'm still not sure which ones I tend to resent more).  Hands down, the easiest decision I make in a given day is deciding which creamer to put in my coffee.  From there, it gets much more complicated:

"Do I sit down on the floor and play with my kids or do I turn on a movie so I can send out those emails?"  

"Do I clean the bathrooms while they nap, or do I finish editing those photos?"  

"Should Jake and I take the evening to reconnect, or should we work on our individual projects after the kids go to sleep?"  

"Do I play with my camera, or do I write?"

"Meditate, or work-out?"

And somewhere, in between every choice I make or don't make, there's that tiny voice that tells me I shouldn't have to choose.  Why can't I just do it all?   Because I can if I really try.  I'm just not doing it right yet.  

It reeks of immaturity.  A voice that preys especially on the young, the energetic, the eternally optimistic.  It dupes us into believing exactly what marketing companies around the world are paid the big bucks to make us believe:  we can do it all, have it all, be it all.  And if we can't, don't, and aren't- then we're obviously not trying hard enough.  Period.  

So this voice accompanied me out of high school, into college, through my engagement and early years of marriage, and got ever louder until I couldn't discern which was my own voice anymore.  It finally took panic attacks and trips to counseling to make me realize there was no other choice than to have it bound and gagged.  

And yet, like a cockroach in a nuclear holocaust, it refuses to die.  Although not anywhere near as loud and obnoxious as it once was, there are still echoes of it in my day to day life.  Like, my first inclination to be frustrated with myself that I let my blog fall to the wayside.  Because, why shouldn't I be able to have the time to write up my business plan, blog, have tickle fights with the kids, cook, take care of the house, go to doctor appointments, have playdates, have long conversations with Jake over dinner, visit with family, balance the checkbook, shave my legs, actually open the new Pilates DVD I ordered 4 months ago.  In reality, I'm extremely lucky if all of the above happens in the span of a week.

Big time reality check.

I don't have anything figured out.  I don't know what I'm doing.  Both my kids are screaming upstairs in their rooms, fighting naptime, I have paperwork to fill out and submit for my business license, and I haven't figured out what I'm making for dinner tonight.  But for now, I've decided that the best way to reel myself back in is with an open bag of chocolate chips and a cup of coffee.  

There are many people and forces in my life that require my steady grace and patience.  But it never ceases to amaze me on days like today, that the person who always needs it most, is myself.

And so I take comfort in the words of a beloved blue fish on Ella's current favorite movie:

"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.  Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do?  We swim, swim."

(And also, don't forget to come up for air).  

Wise fish, that Dory.

"How To Get Help When Your Car Breaks Down"

My car broke down in a downtown 7-11 parking lot today.  (Oh thank Heaven, my @$$).   The rest of the day was spent dodging tornadoes (and I mean that very literally). Really, it was an eventful day...

Anyway, the following is a nifty list I've entitled--

"How to Get Help When Your Car Breaks Down,"  (K-dub style):

1.  Wear a skirt and platform wedges.  This is a must.  No cargo pants, and absolutely NO denim over-alls.

2.  Turn the key in the ignition no less than 3 times after the initial failure to start.  And then again one more time, just for good measure.  Check facebook on your phone and wait 5 minutes.  Turn the key again.  DAMNIT.

3.  Kick yourself with said platform wedges that you didn't listen to your dad/husband/driver's ed teacher when they talked to you about what to do when your car breaks down.  

4.  Get out of the car and nonchalantly look at the hood of your car.  (Is that a dent?  Hmmmm....) Do not, under ANY circumstances, let anyone know that your car has broken down until you figure out a way to let someone know your car has broken down.  Call your husband/significant other/BFF.  When they ask whether or not you've asked someone for a jump, you momentarily wonder what on earth aerobics have to do with starting your car.

5.  Face facts and realize it's time to get down to the nitty-gritty.  Make sure to be meticulous when popping the hood of the car and placing the hood holder-upper stick-thing in the correct hole.  These things take time, you know.  Wouldn't want to break a nail.  Also, it's noon on a 90 degree summer day.  The hood will be hot.  Duh.

6.  Stare under the hood of car and randomly start messing with plugs and coils as if you've done this at least a dozen times.  Silently curse auto-maker for not putting labels on all of the car parts.  In the very least, it should be color coded.  GEEZ.

7.   Walk into 7-11 and ask employee (who looks slightly stoned) for a jump.   (This is, quite obviously, the biggest pain in their ass today). 

8.   Stoner/7-11 employee asks you to go ahead and hook up the two cable ends to your battery.  If you're unsure which end goes on which, go with the "eenie meenie miney mo" method.  Works like a charm.  Then, stand there awkwardly while he revs the engine and blares reggae out of his speakers.

9.   At long last, when a random lawn-care service man (who doesn't have blood-shot eyes) pulls up and asks if you need help, stutter slightly and smooth your hair.  Nothing wrong with playing the damsel in distress.   When, after multiple attempts to start your car, he tells you it sounds like "the starter," nod your head in agreement and say, "yeah,  That's pretty much what I thought it was."

10.  While waiting for the tow truck, indulge yourself in a slurpee and a taquito, guilt free.  You've earned it.

 

Oh Crap, the Three's

As Ella's third birthday approached, I actually started to feel myself breathe easier.  We're still not potty trained (not even close) but we seemed to weather the two's with only minor battle wounds to show for it.   On the one hand, a part of me was nostalgic because really, there's just no way to justify a three year old as a toddler anymore (she really hasn't been for awhile).  Now, she's right smack in the middle of her preschool years, precocious as ever, and losing more of her baby chub every day.  Ack!  How did this happen?  WHEN did this happen??  (I think I want another baby).



On the other hand, I started congratulating myself on making it through her two's.  Jake and I high-fived each other with looks of satisfaction.  "We did it!  Yaaaaaay!"


And then I started getting comments on facebook about her impending birthday:


"Good luck with that!"
"Ugh, the THREE'S."
"My children were way worse at 3 then they were at 2." 
"Just when we thought the worst was over, he turned 3." 


 Someone even skipped a year ahead to give me advanced warning of the "F*** You Fours."


I died a little inside with every comment.


It's not that I thought Jake and I could dust our hands off and be officially DONE with the hardest part of child-rearing (um, I'm terrified of her teenage years), but I was hoping for at least a little reprieve.  Besides, all I had ever been warned about were the "Terrible Two's."  What is this with the three's now?   Lord knows you don't really get anything for making it out of the two's alive- no medal, no long weekend getaway sans kids, not even a shout-out.   In the very least, we had hoped to graduate with at least a partially potty-trained kid who "slept in" past seven.  No such luck.  


I scoffed and thought, "well, maybe that happens to OTHER kids.  Her two's were pretty tumultuous though, so I'm gonna say we've been through the worst..."


And here we are.  Three years and two weeks old, and as much as I wanted to say otherwise, it's like someone flipped a switch permanently to sassy mode.  Heaven help me.  There seems to be a new level of resistance to the things I ask her to do, marked simply by the fact that she's that much more articulate and conniving.  As if that isn't enough, she's started waking up multiple times a night for reasons like, "my curtain rod is scary," or "there's a penguin in my closet" or my most recent personal favorite, "I'm afraid I'm going to grow a peanut like Mi-yo."


Really, kid?


And so I find myself battling newborn-like sleep deprivation, only this time, having to maintain a conversation with my NOT newborn--at 2:20 in the morning-- about why it's just physically not possible for her to grow a penis.  (That's my girl.  If ever there was a good reason to lose sleep, she'll come up with it).  I stumble back into the room and wonder how it is that my one year old is sleeping better than my three year old.

 Jake: "What was it this time?"  
Me: "Apparently, she's scared of penises."  
Jake: "GOOD."


If I don't laugh, I'll cry.  But sometimes even laughing just takes too much darn energy.  In the meantime, I tell myself not to be scared about the three's (not much I can do about it now anyway). That maybe, just like everything else, it's a day by day thing.  Some days will need to be conquered with extra strong coffee, or chocolate, or wine, or maybe screaming into a pillow (me, not her).  And other days will find me in stitches over her spunky attitude, or simply marveling at the fun little girl she's becoming.  


I think there will be more of the latter.

Ella-Bug Turns THREE! (And Answers 20 Questions)

Thanks to Pinterest, I have a ton of great ideas, none of which are my own.   I wish I could claim this next one as my own too, but when I found it via another mommy blog, I knew I had to do it this year with Ella.  I've come up with twenty questions to be answered by her on the eve of her 3rd birthday and hope to continue the tradition for as long as she doesn't think it's lame.  (So, maybe another 5 to 7 years?)   We'll see.

So here they are, straight from the Bug's mouth:



1.  What do you want to be when you grow up?  Why?


A doctor.  But I don't wanna see butts.




(I can't say that I blame her).



2.  What is your favorite thing to say?


"POOP!"



3.  What do you like to eat for dinner?  


Noodles and butter.




4.  What's your favorite thing to do at school with your friends?


Play with Gloria and Bryc-ee and do crafts.





5.  What's your favorite toy right now?


Mi-yo bean.




6.  What's your favorite book?  


The boy throws the kite in the tree and the ladder and then he can't get them down and he tries really hard.  


**She's referring to the book "Stuck."  Thank you Williams fam-  Ella has read that book twenty times already!** :)




7.   What would happen if all the chocolate in the world disappeared?


The whole world would be sad and then no one would be happy anymore.

(How right she is...)





8.    What would you do if Milo took your favorite toy?


I'd tell him, "Miyo, you woudn't like it if Ella took YOUR toy..."

(Nice try, kid.  I'm no fool.  You conveniently left out the part where you would smack him into next Tuesday).



9.    What's your favorite thing about Daddy?


Hugging him.




10.  What's your favorite thing about Mommy?


Playing with you.  I like tickling on the floor.




11.  If you could be an animal, what animal would you be?  


A giraffe!  


Why?


Because they like to eat.




12.  Why do you like to wake up so very, very early?


Because it's fun.  It's fun going into mommy's room.


(Fun for WHO...???)



13.  What do you think about when you fall asleep at night?


How I can get food in the night.

(Well hello there, instant pang of mom-guilt.  Is my kid going to bed hungry??  Probably so, since she refuses to eat 80% of what I put in front of her...)



14.   What is your favorite thing to do with Milo?


I yell him to STOP!!! when he cries too much.








15.   What makes you laugh?


The part in "snoopy" when his hair gets big and he sees the big pumpkin.  


(How random is her brain?  One of her favorite scenes from "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown)."





16.  What makes you cry?


Sometimes Ella gets a little 'frust--ated'...*long pause*  I don't like it when it rains.






17.  What's your favorite song to sing in Mommy's car?


Old McDonald Had a Farm.


(For the record, not ONCE have we ever sung this song in my car.  But hey, it's her world).





18.   What's your favorite show on TV right now?


Little Einsteins!  "Climb 'aborn'...get ready to explore..."






19.   What is your favorite color?


Red, orange, and green!  Lanterns!




20.  What color is happy?


Yellow!  What's YOUR favorite color, Mommy?












Oh my spunky, sweet, Ella-bug....I love seeing the world through your eyes.  Thank you for picking me to be your mommy.  I love you to the moon and back again....

Not The Mama

Sometimes, I try to pretend that I'm not a lowly pawn in my daughter's ever-changing chess game.  I've lost count of the number of times that she's "check-mated" me.  

"Ella, it's time to eat lunch."

{whiiiiinnnnneee}

"Ella, I need to change your diaper."

{NOOOOOOO!!!!!}

"Ella, it's time to brush your teeth and get ready for bed."

{But I wanna watch Mike the Knight!!!!}

In my head, I know that every act of resistance is an opportunity for me to push back that much harder. Be firm.  Unmoving.  Unfeeling.   To say, "Tough toenails, kiddo.  I'm the MOM."  

But the reality is that I don't want to be the mom sometimes.  I want to be some obscure, favorite aunt who isn't around enough to wear out her welcome and therefore, has an endless supply of patience and energy (and candy).  She would be so much better to do all of the negotiating and coercing.  Because, truth be told, I'm just a bit of a pushover.  And I'm not so much interested in laying down the law as much as I'm interested in peace and quiet.  And sometimes, I just want a few extra minutes to muster up enough grit to forge ahead with a diaper change that could truly gag a maggot, or the ridiculous (and yet, impressive) display of stall tactics at bedtime.  

So, through a combination of happenstance and necessity, we've landed on the "five minutes" rule.  Every parent has said it:  "Fine. Five more minutes."  It's a compromise of sorts, because let's be honest:  as parents, we've met our matches.  These beautiful creatures who captivate us because we have no idea what we ever did to deserve to feel such love are also nature's pay-back for all the crap we did to our parents.   Sure, they're only 3 feet tall and can't control their bodily functions, but there's no denying that they've had us at their mercy from the day we brought them home from the hospital.  

So at times, I just like to give them the illusion of control.  Not giving in, per se, rather handing over an inch or two of the reigns without letting them take full control of the horse.  Ultimately, it buys them time to do whatever it is that's so incredibly important, and it gives me time to gather my nerves and patience.  And to top it all off, I'm momentarily spared the attitude and soul-sucking whine.  Maybe they'll forget that they didn't want to go to bed... 

But what I've found, surprisingly, is that those five minutes are often all that's needed.  Ella has now learned (and somewhat accepted) that when the timer goes off, there's no more debating.  She knows that she only gets one five minute rule at a time in our house.  And for me?  Those five fleeting minutes give me time to not be the bad guy, the negotiator, the time-out placer, the layer-down-of-the-law, the frazzled cook,  schedule coordinator, endless supplier of boo-boo kisses, and the car-pool fairy.

For five more minutes, I just get to be someone who maybe gets to finish her cup of coffee in peace.   And that's enough for me.