A potty training story

Of the many things I was unprepared for as a parent, one of the biggest was how much time I would spend thinking about poop. Now, with three children, including a new one and two who are potty training, I spend more time thinking about poop than any rational person should. How often it comes. What color it is. The texture of it. These are all things that must be considered on a regular basis.

No one’s quite as invested in poop as a parent who hasn’t seen their kid go in two days and understands that a disaster is oncoming. After all, it’s going to have to come out eventually.

My eldest is four, and I’m concerned my tombstone will read “done in by her toddler’s inability to listen.” He’s got a strong will, inherited from his mother, and a stubborn streak, inherited from his father. Multiple times a day, I’m tearing my hair out. But this isn’t one of those stories. This is a story about a good day. And poop.

Potty training my eldest has been a journey I can only describe as “harrowing.” It has quite possibly taken years off my life. It took us months and months to get to the point where he was only having a couple of accidents a day, and he would pee regularly on the potty. It has taken well over a year for us to get to a point that I can effectively dub him “potty trained.”

But before we get to that point, we need to address poop. When we first started potty-training, my eldest was terrified of pooping on the potty. He could pee, no problem. But trying to get him to poop is a fruitless mission.

Usually, by the time I knew about the poop, it had already happened. But not this day.

It was time for our regularly scheduled potty visit, and when I told my 4-year-old this, he screamed, “No, I’m pooping!”

To which I said, “Oh my god, let’s go.”

I carried my still-screaming toddler to the bathroom, where I did my best to calm him down while I checked his underwear, which is still somehow, thankfully, devoid of poop. We’d made it in time. It took me several minutes of consoling to get him to put bum to potty.

When he finally sat, he looked at me and said, “Leave me alone.”

I said, “Fair enough,” and I left. No one wants to talk or be stared at while they poop.

Eventually, he started reading his bathtub book. Then, he asked for more books. I brought him more.

What followed was 45 minutes of him reading on the potty, then calling for me to bring more books. I did not question this. I simply brought him more books. The pile of books grew steadily until it was blocking the bathroom doorway.

At one point, he looked at me and said, “I pooped.”

I said, “Great job, buddy! Can I see?”

“No, leave me alone.”

Fair enough.

I left again, and he continued to read and sit even as his brother ate lunch. Finally, Daddy came down from his office upstairs, where he works remotely.

My eldest said, “Look, Daddy, I pooped on the potty!” He immediately stood up to show off his handiwork because naturally, Daddy gets to see.

But who cares? I’m just ecstatic because there is, in fact, a gigantic poop in that potty, and quite frankly, I could cry tears of joy. We’d done it.