Boys and Poop

If I have to clean poop off the carpet one more time . . .

Yes, we have a son. A two-year-old son, to be specific. A stubborn, mess-loving, dirt-collecting, complete and total boy.

Potty-training is hardly a walk in the park, anyway, but boys are new territory for me. My two oldest children are girls. The day my oldest daughter turned two, we went to work. We let her run around bare-britches for about two days and ta-da! That smile? Was I giddy or just smug? My second oldest was potty trained at just over two years old. She was a little harder, but when I explained to this very verbal girl that she could do away with diaper rash simply by "going potty on the potty chair," that was all it took. Bring on the Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Tinkerbell panties!

So, I have to admit, I was a little cocky. A friend of mine used to smirk every time I mentioned potty-training my son. "He already knows what potty is. We use the word every time he pees in the tub. I think he's starting to get it already."

A few months later, "He pooped in the potty chair last night! We put him on the potty chair right before bath time and he just went! Can you believe that? He just turned a year and a half. He seems like he's really going to be easy." Again, with the smirk. My friend was really starting to bug me.

I went out and bought big boy panties. Excuse me, big boy undies. My husband gets upset every time I call them panties. Not macho. I don't care what we call them. I just want the boy to wear them.

A few days after our son turned two, I put the big boy undies on the boy. Three hours later, all three pairs soaking wet and the boy decidedly unconcerned, I decided that that wasn't the way to go.

I went to the bare britches method. Yep. I neglected to take into account the anatomy of a boy. When my girls had had an accident, it had been an unpleasant experience. They had ended up soaked. When my boy, however, had an accident, he discovered the pure joy of watching a jet-propelled stream launch from his body and land a yard away. This was not unpleasant, this was something to be proud of. Hands on his hips and back arched, he quickly learned to maximize his distance.

We turned to pull-ups and potty breaks. We turned to candy incentives and rewards. We bought Spiderman, Thomas the Train, and Bob the Builder underwear. We broke out in the "potty in the potty, potty in the potty, potty in the potty chair" song every time a drop escaped from the boy into the correct basin.

And, then. The boy learned how to take his pull-up off. He also gained the new and wonderful skill of learning to know just before he was going to poop, that he was going to poop.

That boy, that oh-so-sweet boy, will be in a room that I am not. Vrooming truck noises will drift my way, as I move about the house. Then, and you know this is where it gets bad, there will be quiet.

I will turn the corner and there he will be. His shorts will be in the middle of the room, his pull-up will be inside-out and off-to-the-side, and the boy will be standing by poop, which is on the carpet.

This happened four times yesterday. I called my husband at work and voiced my concern over his son's well-being. Perhaps he should think about coming home from work early.

But I've just discovered our new plan today. The unstoppable boy has been stopped. He can't get a belt undone. Triumph! Victory! Ha-ha! Yes! He will wear a belt every day for the rest of his life. No more poop on the carpet. Score one for the parents!

Of course, that could affect the potty-training. . .