Mom Life October 25, 2013

Adventures in Potty Training

READER BE WARNED: if potty training and the things that go along with it make you squeamish, nauseous, anxious, or straight up terrified for impending parenthood, then don’t read this. There is no need. However if you, like me, enjoy the comedy that is little people and their bathroom antics, then by all means, join me for the party.

It’s a Party. A Straight Up Poop Fiesta. Fiesta de Poopoo.

Oh. Em. Gee. No one tells you about the potty training horror stories. Or at least no one ever informed me. By 6:30am this morning I had already cleaned up two accidents, wiped an impressively messy baby butt, and washed the precious “froggy potty” which Little C loves so much. Too bad that she loves it SO much that she prefers to talk to it rather than sit on it and only uses it perhaps half the time. Today, we struck out (I say “we” because potty training has to be a team effort, and I have come to look at this time in our lives as one long, extremely messy, and startlingly strange sporting event-soon we are all going to need Team Poop t-shirts…Etsy anyone?)

Back to this morning: there were no home runs, no base hits. Just straight up misses. If we continue with the sports nomenclature, I would say that there were air balls, a failed two-point-conversion (hehe, get it?) and no goals were scored.  You see, this morning, Little C ventured into the basket of dirty laundry, where she promptly pooped.  She literally took a deuce ONTO the clothes. This was no small accident. She reminded me of Godzilla terrifying a tiny Japanese town-the clothes below her at her mercy, screaming out “nooo! nooo! nooooooo!”.  I was paralyzed for a moment in sheer panic, watching the scene unfold as if in slow motion. Like that moment where you see two cars about to crash and there is nothing you can do, you just watch and scream inwardly and try to remain calm.  In retrospect, the moments after as I was hollering at Big C to grab the wipes remind me of the comedy sketch with Dane Cook, “someone has sh*t on or around the coats!!!!!”  The icing on top of the proverbial cake was that after this happened, Little C STEPPED in it. Like, really really stepped in it. Have you ever tried cleaning poop out from between a toddler’s toes? If not, then you haven’t really lived yet.

Since we are already on the topic of potty training, I feel that it is also important to mention that Little C prefers to run either behind her rocking chair or the curtains to poop.  Some might suggest that it’s because she wants privacy, but I’m pretty sure that it’s because she secretly enjoys watching my face as it dawns on me what has just transpired.  She also has a penchant for helping me with the carpet washer, so her reasoning could be two-fold: enjoy making mommy make funny faces, then get to help wash carpets. Win, win.  

Helpful Potty Training Survival Tools (wish I had more-I’m clearly still a newbie)

  1. A good carpet washer (heated ones are best) – we love our Bissell Pro Heat
  2. Baking soda and vinegar-your best spot cleaning friends
  3. Books-the only way that little C will stay put on said potty long enough! A few of our favorites currently are Potty, Everyone Poops, Where’s the Poop?, and Sesame Street: Potty Time with Elmo
  4. A fun potty that your kid will enjoy sitting on-Little C is obsessed with her smiling Froggy Potty (bonus-it’s super easy to clean!)

Alternatively, in a perfect world, our small people would just live in a plastic-covered room a la Dexter’s kill rooms where they could roam wild and free until ready to enter back into society, able to once again grace the carpeted rooms of the world with their presence. (I kid, I kid).  And don’t worry, the pictures from below are not from THE incident. From now on we are maintaining a firm Froggy-Potty-Only-Allowed-In-The-Kitchen/Bathroom-On-The-Hardwood Policy.

The adventure continues. I’ll keep you all appraised of the situation as things unfold…..



You may also like