A look of terror came over my three-year-old’s face. He knew it, I knew it. There was no stopping it now.
“Mama! I have to go poo-POO!”
I had been waiting FIVE DAYS for this moment, and when it came, I couldn’t move. I literally could not move. My pregnant butt was stuck so far into the couch I couldn’t get back up. I wished Christopher Robin and his friends would come pull and tug me and eventually unplug me from the great tightness I was in.
Finally, and as gracefully as a baby rhino, I managed to dislodge myself from the couch and limp over to the front door, where Forest was squirming in the nude. We took the nudist approach to potty training and it worked great. I had only a few seconds to decide what to do. There was definitely no time to make it to the bathroom, and my pregnant self couldn’t handle the thought of a Snickers bar on the living room floor.
I mustered up my remaining strength, silenced my sciatic nerves, and carried Forest out the door, at arm’s length for safety. I then deposited him on the flowerbed, where he defiled a Chinese Forget-Me-Not.
He hadn’t seen his own poop since he was a baby and we were both in the bath. A little brown snake slithered towards his rubber ducky and he shrieked and cried, absolutely terrified, while I tried to stop laughing. This time he didn’t cry, he just screamed, “AH! POOP!” Because he is Christian. I also let out a little scream.
I don’t know why we were so surprised. He had been holding it for almost a week; it was bound to come out sometime. I had promised him all sorts of things: popsicles, ice cream sandwiches, every tic tac flavor, chocolate, the car keys, but he still wouldn’t poop. And he had to. Oh, he really had to. The eyes are windows to the soul and also the intestines.
I fed him peach pear plum flax seed date explosive smoothies with a side of pineapple and beans and he still stood his ground. Quite impressive, really.
But beans always win.
It’s very weird, seeing poop fall out of someone. He wasn’t even squatting or anything. It just fell like a ripe orange. Oh, I also fed him oranges.
I left him in the flowerbed, standing on his tip toes, while I went inside to gag a little. Then I called Graeme and thanked Jesus for Graeme’s job which allows him to work from home and pick up little boy poop from the front yard.
Forest was potty trained after that day, and I don’t have any more poop stories, which is a very good thing. The most interesting thing that happens now is Forest will find shapes in the toilet, like people do with clouds.
“I made Gary Gopher, a snake, a rabbit, and a CROCODILE!”
The day before the flowerbed incident, I cried and moped because nothing I was doing was working. And then the very next day we were sitting in the kitchen, celebrating with ice cream sandwiches and giving hi-fives all around, after having washed our hands really well. So if you’re in the middle of potty training, just know the poop will come. It will happen.
Just probably not in the toilet.
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