Poo Wars: A New Hope

I love being a mom. It is the best job I've ever had. That said, let me wax poetic on potty training. Within the first few months of becoming a parent one loses all tendencies toward pretense. C'mon. How cool can you look when you pick your little one up to sniff their behinds to see if you've got an extra gift waiting? You know you've done it. And I've done it in public. Or better yet, have you ever been out with your friends when your little on says, "Mommy, I poop myself. Change me."

Anyway, once they start walking, the sniff protocol becomes unnecessary because (hypothesis) the pumping action of the legs propels stinkiness out of the diaper. As a result, you can usually close your eyes and follow the smell. Potty training is supposed to be the key to freedom from stinkdom in the pants. My son is almost three, and he's being challenging. He uses the potty at daycare, but we get no cooperation at home. Maybe he's got some anxiety? I don't know. Last night my husband and I decided to put our son in toddler underwear to motivate him to use the potty and not soil himself.

We put the Thomas undies on and voila. He was excited. He told me he would go to the Elmo Potty if he felt water coming. Two hours later. I was greeted with a puddle in my family room. I sat him on the potty anyway, if only to give myself some time to sop up the pee. The second pair of underwear goes on. My husband arrived home ( from the office Christmas party) just in time to catch my son making "the face." You know--the grimaced slightly red with a hint of surprise face? Think Rodney Dangerfield. Yeah, that one. My husband gallantly dashed him off to the potty, and met the poo on the way out. As my husband described it, it sounded like the poo did a Mr. Hankie (Christmas poop) and left a small mark in the Thomas undies. Not one to give up, my husband put our son on the potty and...our son made two small deposits in there. There was also a deposit on the toilet seat. Don't know how that happened. Don't wanna guess.

It was all good until my son decided to wipe himself. He's not very good at it. I arrived to the bathroom just in time to see my son react in horror as he realized that some of his poo got on his hand. He discarded the used toilet paper on the white tile floor and without a second thought, wiped his hand on my pristine primer white walls. Out of incredulity I asked, " Did he just wipe s*** on the wall?" My husband admonished me. (Sorry, it really did just slip.) Hubby then said, "I got it."

I walked away still embarrassed about my language faux pas. As I sat in the dungeon, I heard my husband order,"Don't touch me. Get your hands off my pants. Please don't touch my shirt." There was silence then the sound of little cub feet pounding down the hallway. Then I heard, " Do. Not. Sit. Down. Get off the carpet. No. Put your hands up."

At that point, I hugged my self as I broke into convulsive fits of laughter. I laughed so hard, I had an asthma attack. I tried very hard to keep my laughter to myself, but it was too hard. My husband is 6' and built like a linebacker. Just the thought of him being held hostage by a 3' clone of himself with poop-hands was too much.

A few minutes later, my husband came downstairs--a little red faced. I decided to leave him alone when he started murmuring that he had to get bleach to clean the walls, but I couldn't resist. "Everything OK," I asked. My husband got this far-off look Rambo look and started nodding. "It's all on the wall," he said.

With that, our weekend began.