Exclusive exposé, tonight on... THE POOP REPORT!
As we have learned previously, poop goes in the potty. This, we took for granted. This, we took as fact. However, tonight in a shocking candid moment with Alex, age 2, we will learn that in fact, we have been fooled.
Exclusive story, tonight at 11.
Actually, make that at 11:45..or Midnight.. or 1 am.
I've been feeling for quite some time that easily 1/2 my job as a babysitter is to report on the status of each childs bowel movements. At the end of each session, as I perform what I've come to think of as "the hand-off" to the parent, I give them a little oral report on how their child had been during our time together. Were they fussy? Did they eat? Did they sleep? How much? How long? How many diapers? And the most fun of all: Were there poopy diapers? How did it look? Was there a lot of it? Did it seem painful? Did it cause any irritation?
The parents will also give me a similar run-down, involving info as to whether or not their child has pooped yet that day, when handing their kid off to me. I've taken to referring to this as The Poop Report.
When changing diapers I am always reminded of an old bit from Robin Williams' stand-up routine. When talking about becoming a father for the first time and changing his infant son's diapers, he exclaims: "Jesus christ! Did that shit go to Cleveland before it reached his diaper?!" I have wondered this on way, way too many occasions. Except I think it went to 3-Mile Island, not Cleveland.
I've remarked on being shocked by the varying vibrant colors of dog-poop I have seen planted strategically in the dead center of the sidewalks in Paris. These diapers make that look like child's play (oh, all puns intended). I have seen diapers that suggest this child has been drinking gallon jugs of food coloring, that made me wonder if that kid perhaps is more precocious than she seems and managed to open a can of spinach and dump it into her diaper while I wasn't looking, or if this other kid is perhaps radioactive.
Alex, my adorable 2yr old little pal, will resist diaper changes at all cost and insist that he has only "peepee" in his diaper even while it is bursting at the seems with chunky rank poo. Sophie, who is not yet 2yrs old but is larger than the average 5yr old, will run around with 5lbs of poop weighing her diapers down. Her parents apply packing tape to the waistband of her diapers - they say to prevent her from pulling them off, but I think it might also be to keep them from falling off due to unusually heavy loads (sidenote: if your kid is the size of a 5yr old at age 2 and seems to be expressing interest in potty-training, please for the love of god, teach the child to use a potty and stop making her run around in 5lb of her own feces). Ellenor, age 6mo, produces the most brightly colored poops - bright green, bright orange, purple... you name it, she's expelled it. At one point I was wondering if we might get a "Napoleon" style, like a 3 flavor box of ice cream.
Today, I had to change Sophie's diaper twice. It was traumatic. I nearly wretched. They were within only a few hours of each other and were totally distinct. The second had bits of undigested food. With the first, we were playing when she suddenly squatted and scrunched up her face. When asked, "Sophie are you pooping?", she would either deny it or simply change the subject. Moments later, you could smell it from three rooms away. If I were this child and I was running around caked in my own feces, I'd be pulling my diapers off too.
So this evening, after such a wonderously poop filled afternoon, I was taking care of Alex. One may argue that Alex is in denial of his participation in this particular bodily function or he may be confused by the different terms applied in English and French. In any case, whenever I go to take off his diaper to put him into his bath, when he smells to high heavens of a poopy diaper, or when I ask if he has a dirty diaper, he insists that it is only "pee-pee." Even when I pull a diaper off and it is overflowing with "caca", he still says, "No. Pee-pee."
Tonight I am giving him his bath. He is playing with his boats and the bubbles and generally enjoying himself. I am feeling thankful that he has stopped fighting tooth-and-nail to avoid taking his bath. I am thinking how it's been such a good evening and how easily everything has gone.
Alex is sitting sort of in a squat playing with his boats. Suddenly he looks at me and says, "Uh oh." I say, "Uh oh? What's 'uh oh' for buddy? Why do you say 'uh oh.'?" He stands up suddenly and turns around as if something has bit him in the rear, and I see what the "uh oh" was for. I have counted my chickens before they have hatched, and Alex has pooped in his bath. Twice.
I pull him out as fast as I can and plop him on his little potty, hoping to avoid further contamination. While he sits there insisting that it is only pee-pee, I go through the process of fishing all the little bits out of the bath, draining the bath, and sanitizing the tub, before refilling it and starting bath time all over again.
I guess poop does not always go in the potty
(thinking back now, I remember from my childhood years a little boy of 4 or 5 who shall remain nameless, who pooped out of a second story window of a house... it wasn't his fault - older boys, also to remain nameless, dared him to do it.).
You know...the happiest potty poopers I know are
ReplyDeletea) the kids whose parents did some form of elimination communication with them beginning during infancy and these kids are pretty self-directedly focused on potty pooping younger than other kids; and
b) the kids whose parents go with the flow, and let them potty train when the kid decides s/he is ready. sometimes that's age 2. more often it is age 3 or 4. they all figure it out on their own by age 4, and even without the nagging, bribery, or punishments that seem to have become popular in the west (friends from India report that EC is the norm from day one, b/c it's so darned hot, diapers would only result in diaper rash)