Poopy Eyeball

My plan to engage in toilet talk along side my daughter, thus eliminating the taboo and decreasing the desire to engage in it has TOTALLY BACKFIRED.

When I was in my junior year of high school, I went to Ohio to check out Oberlin College. We stayed with my father’s twin brother, his wife, and their three little girls. Two of them were in or around preschool age. Giggly, curly-haired, silly little girls, they loved toilet-talk as much as the next three-year-old. What stands out in my mind about this visit is that they had invented a truly unique expletive that sent them into peals of laughter every time it was uttered:

Poopy eyeball.

There was something particularly irreverent about the combination of naughty word “poop” with the inherently goofy word “eyeball” that made the phrase worth repeating over and over and over again.

Needless to say, it left an impression. And twenty-five years later, I found myself uttering it in a moment of playful toilet banter with Sophie. Mind you, it’s not something I said more than once or twice, but Sophie immediately found it to have lexical appeal.

“Poopy eyeball?” she said grinning broadly, her own eyes rolling in her head with excitement.

I rue the moment it passed my lips. Sophie manages to work it into every conversation we have. Apparently, it’s a noun, a verb, an adjective, and an exclamation. As in, “Poopy eyeball! I poopy eyeball on my poopy eyeball. It’s very poopy eyeball.”

Despite my determination not to “limit” her toilet talk and to kill it with permissiveness, I’ve had to enact the rule: no toilet talk while we’re eating. It’s really annoying to dine with someone who feels compelled to repeatedly drop the phrase “poopy eyeball,” the way teenagers pepper their sentences with, “like.” My rule has been poorly observed.

Thus, I’ve resorted to more desperate measures. I tried super-saturating her in the car one afternoon, saying “poopy eyeball” in response to everything she said.

She thought it was hilarious.

Today, for the first time, I saw signs of her weakening. After her nap, in a moment of extreme crankiness, I responded to her request to watch Mary Poppins with, “Poopy Eyeball.”

“STOP IT MOMMY!”

Oh yeah. Take that. In your eyeball, baby.

There's Just Something about Poop

I was in a library with Sophia, my friend Paula*, and her three boys.

“Tell Paula your new joke,” I goaded Sophie.

Sophie smiled, and with a twinkle in her eye, said, “Knock knock,”

“Who’s there?” asked Paula in a delighted voice--just one of the reasons she’s a fabulous preschool teacher.

“Centipede.”

“Centipede who?” Asked the unsuspecting Paula.

“CENITPEDE ON THE CHRISTMAS TREE!” Sophie shouted, euphorically.

“Remember, we’re in the library,” I reminded her. “Quiet voice, please.”

Paula’s jaw was hanging open. “Melissa!” she said, scolding me, “that is NOT funny.” I was surprised by her reaction, and, a little bit embarrassed. Was the joke that bad? Should I not be teaching Sophie toilet humor?

According to Paula, no. She explained that once her boys got going, there was no stopping them. It was inappropriate. And she didn’t want them taking it to school.

Okay. Fair enough. (But I thought it was funny.)

I know a lot of people are bothered by the toilet humor…parents, teachers, people in restaurants who suffer the misfortune of sitting too close to our table. And granted, it can be grating to hear your three-year-old say “poopy toilet butt” thirty times in a row. But, as far as I can see, it seems to be a universal developmental phase, inklings of the understanding that poop is private and something that shouldn’t be talked about in polite company. As with all things made taboo, the fact that it is forbidden gives rise to the compulsion to shout “stinky tushie” from the rooftops, or, at least the table tops.

Let’s face it. There’s just something about poop. It’s got that je ne sais quoi. Today, at the farmer’s market, two alpacas, freshly shorn, were penned next to several tables laden with alpaca wool products. One sat neatly, his front legs curled under him. The other stood ruminating a mouthful of hay. They stared placidly, with soft brown eyes, at the urchins who stared back from the other side of the fence, when suddenly, the one that was standing squeezed out a fistful of alpaca pellets.

“Look, this one is POOPING!” one kid shouted pointing at the alpaca’s rear end.

“It’s shooting out his butt!” another noted with glee.

Hysteria ensued.
“Mommy! Do you see the poop?” Sophie asked me. As if I could miss it with all this excitement.

“Never fails to get a laugh,” noted one parent.

“Endless entertainment,” another agreed.

“Everybody does it,” I said casually to Sophie, “What goes in, must come out.” I have a sneaking suspicion that reacting to toilet talk is the thing that encourages more toilet talk. In fact, I like to go in the other direction. I actually initiate it. I’ll sneak up on Sophie and say in her ear, “Guess what?”

“What?” Sophie asks.

“Chicken butt!” I shout, laughing and running away. I was taught this excellent joke by Jan, the then-five year-old son of my friend Emily.

“Chicken butt,” Sophie snickers. And then she moves on.



*Not her real name.