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Sunday, August 26, 2007
Tales of the toilet: Dirty diapers pale next to these
How do you handle your your child’s poop crisis?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There are many common experiences that bind parents together - the joy of holding your child for the first time, the thrill of seeing them crawl or walk, and the nastiness of getting pooped on.
When you become a mom, you know you’re going to have to change diapers, but what you don’t realize is how much time you will spend thinking about and dealing with poop.
Parents of small children talk about their kids’ bowel movements all the time - at the playground, the pool, even at work. I used to have a boss that would give me daily reports about his daughter’s potty training - and believe me, I hadn’t asked.
My husband doesn’t want me to write about this topic. He thinks it’s gross. And, while it is nasty, I think dealing with poop is such an everyday mom experience that it is appropriate to discuss, even for a newspaper.
Every mother gets “christened” by their child at some point. I think it’s one of those evening out experiences - no matter how rich you are, no matter how many nannies you employ, at some point you will be mopping poop off yourself or your furniture.
Two weeks ago, while my husband was meeting fabulous people at an ESPN cocktail party in Las Vegas, I was cleaning up poop.
My 4-year-old son had three random bouts of diarrhea - two in the family room and one in the backyard. He had apparently eaten too many real fruit popsicles. On the messiest of the three occasions, he called me into the family room. I watched him climb off the couch with his underwear clearly hanging low in back. He waddled toward me with something dripping behind him.
I had to think fast — my son didn’t know where to go and my daughter and the dog were both heading toward the poop-filled hallway. I was like super spy Jason Bourne - the training was innate. It just took over.
First, I picked up my son and sat him on the toilet with his underwear still on. I needed him immobilized. Then I yelled at my daughter to step over the poop and go into the basement. I hooked up the dog so he wouldn’t try to lick up the mess and then started disinfecting the hardwood floor - three times.
Without going into details, I decided the best thing to do was cut off my sons underwear along the sides and let them drop into the toilet. He cried that I cut his Power Rangers underwear.
Six years ago I wouldn’t have known how do deal with that large of a poop crisis. Like a long-distance runner, you have to build up your endurance —from learning to handle a baby’s rocket-propelled runny bowel movements to many months later when you graduate to coaxing your children into pooping on the toilet and not in their pants.
Most parents accept cleaning up their own child’s poop but it is especially nasty when you’re “blessed” by someone else’s child. Our new baby’s godmother stopped by the other day. The baby’s diaper gapped and leaked all over her pants. I felt terrible. She quickly left and later at the baptism sort of held the baby out at some distance from her.
While I have adapted to cleaning up human poop, doggy poop just grosses me out. After I had mopped up my son’s poop for the second time, the dog decided to get into the act. I found three piles near the fireplace. I couldn’t catch a break that week.
I have a favorite saying that Homer Simpson once used when he was angry at his dog Santa’s Little Helper. Homer called a family meeting and the kids wanted to know why. He answered because “We’ve never had a member of the family we could give away before.” Our little dog needs to remember that.
When did you first get pooped on? Tell us how you’ve handled your child’s poop crisis.
