If you’re reading this, then I’m going to assume that you’re not grossed out by poop. The title sums up what you’re about to hear. I was having a hard time choosing between the one above and “Why Won’t You Poop on the G*dd&#n Toilet Instead of Everywhere Else?!” but “Purse Full of Poop” seemed catchier, no?
Zana, who turns 3 in February, still hasn’t made the decision to poop on the toilet. I say “made the decision” because I know she’s 100% capable of doing it. She pees on the potty without a problem (most of the time), but #2 has only happened on the potty a few times. Recently, we’ve started forcing the issue by having her wear underwear instead of Pull-ups.
The logic goes something like this: she’ll go all over herself a few times, not like the feeling, and then use the potty forever after. Unfortunately, our trickery hasn’t worked. Here are a couple of my favorite not-wearing-a-Pull-up moments from the past week:
1. I pick up my darling daughter at school and receive the exciting news that she didn’t have any accidents that day. Hooray! When we walk in the house, I say “Zana, let’s go to the potty.” To which she replies, “I don’t need to.”
Then, within one minute, she tells me she peed in her pants. I calmly start cleaning up the puddle of urine while she takes her clothes off and puts them in the laundry room. I don’t even get to finish the job when I hear, from the other room, “Mommy, I poopied!”
What the…???
“Where?” I ask; it wasn’t anywhere obvious. My little girl had climbed naked on top of the brown, leather ottoman, squatted, and done her business. I was so grossed out that I wanted to wipe her little butt with the Lysol wipes, like I used on the ottoman… but I refrained.
2. Some neighborhood friends invited us over for dinner for the first time. Everything was going beautifully– the kids were playing in the basement and the grown-ups were enjoying a lovely meal and multiple bottles of wine. Zana had used the potty at least once, so I was feeling pretty good about my decision to let her wear underwear… until I heard those dreaded words: “Mommy, I made a poopie!”
Ummmmmmm “In your pants!?”
Did I really have to ask? I tried to act casual around our gracious hosts, taking Zana into the hallway to assess the damage. It was ugly. I asked for a plastic bag and used almost an entire package of wipes cleaning her behind, legs, feet(?!), everything. Zana got dressed in the change of clothes I brought (yay for thinking ahead-ha), and put the bag of nasty-ness in my beautiful new purse that I bought last week. I’d just have to sort it out later (or throw the whole thing away at home– but they were her cute little skinny jeans and I really like those!).
I thought we’d moved on until the older girls came up the stairs carrying a dress-up skirt covered in– you guessed it– poop. “Ewwwwwwwwww,” they said as they crinkled their noses. “There’s poop on this!”
Seriously?! I can’t figure out how that happened. Did she shove the tutu down her pants? I mean, it was covered. We ended up throwing it out instead of trying to wash it, if that gives you any idea of how much poop was involved.
Our friends told us a couple bathroom stories of their own, in an effort to make us feel less-embarrassed. But all I kept thinking was “please don’t let them find any more of Zana’s poop strewn around the house.” I have a feeling they’re too nice to tell us if they did.
MomInDCity readers, you have to help me. Zana’s school says to keep her in underwear, but just today I got another bag of her soiled clothing from the teacher. Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck!
Any suggestions?
