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.
Showing posts with label poop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poop. Show all posts
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Toilet Talk
Kevin and I are compatible in many ways, but we have very different attitudes, mores and comfort levels when it comes to toilet talk:
My loud, Northeastern, Jewish family was obsessed with poop. The frequency, duration, and consistency of one’s bowel movements was a gauge of good health and had implications for one’s happiness. I can remember, from a very young age…but lasting well into late childhood…my father bending over me, inquiring, did I need to make an eh-eh? (To this day, he will still ask me about the quality of my BMs, if I’m not feeling well.) At dinner, whether you had gone that day was considered to be an acceptable topic of conversation. Both my parents left the door open for business while they were doing their business. As a result, I grew up with a causal attitude towards and, dare I say, a penchant for toilet talk.
Kevin, my Protestant, Mid-Western husband, is quite the opposite. Poop was something that happened behind closed doors. Early on in our relationship he announced that he did not make BMs, but rather “pooted talcum powder.” I smiled at his modesty, but after the intimacy of 10 years together, the question of whether he does indeed poo like the rest of us remains a mystery to me. If he does, he has taken great pains to leave no evidence of this fact.
When we had a child, I warned Kevin that even if he did not poop himself, his daughter most definitely would—and we were BOTH going to have to deal with it. Kevin was resigned to this fact, but I don’t think he imagined in his wildest dreams how much I would want to talk about it: the color, the consistency, the frequency, the contents was all fair game.
In the early days, I took data, noting when she pooped to ensure that she was soiling the right amount of diapers each day. I finally stopped when I felt confident that what was coming out was indicative that enough was getting in. Breast milk poos were the best: mustardy in consistency, faint in order, easily wiped away. I dreaded the day when she would start to eat solid foods and her BMs would become messier, smellier, and more abundant. I even delayed solids, in part, because I didn’t want to have to deal with the fall out. But eventually there came a point where I had to feed my daughter, regardless of how it would transform the contents of her diaper.
As Kevin was generally at work when Sophie let loose with the chocolate mousse, I was the primary cleaner-upper. Which, compounded by the wrestling matches that took place atop her changing table, piqued my interest in early toilet training.
So, much to Kevin’s chagrin, I have begun a campaign of what I call poo awareness. So far, it’s been fairly successful.
If suddenly, the room is, say, smelling like rotten eggs I ask, “Sophia, where’s the poo?” She pats her bottom and replies, “poo.” Then we march upstairs to the changing station where, after I’ve pinned her, I remove the offending diaper and hold it up for her to take a good look.
“Sophia. This is your poo.” I instruct. “PU STINKY!” which is all she needs to hear to reach for the diaper to get a closer look. “Poo,” she echoes, reverently. Similarly, when changing a wet diaper, I again hold it up for her inspection. “Pee. This is your pee.” “Pee!” Sophia repeats, diligent student that she is.
Pretty soon, under my tutelage, Sophia came to want to talk about her excretions. Each morning, when I removed her five-pound Pampers, Sophia guessed happily “Poop?”
“No,” I corrected her, “pee. You went pee,” and show her the evidence.
Then came the status updates. We’d be playing in the basement, when she’d suddenly grab her diaper and exclaim, “Poop!” Skeptical, I’d give her the sniff test, and generally she was wrong, but I would change her anyway…assuming that she had wet her diaper and was aware that SOMETHING had happened DOWN THERE. Even Kevin got excited as she began to make these announcements. And on multiple occasions I caught him having conversations with Sophia about her diaper action while he tended to her needs.
I decided it was potty time. We went to Buy Buy Baby and I quickly became overwhelmed by the choices. Did we want a potty that cheered and sang when you peed on it or did we want one that had “real flushing action?” Did we need a multitasking toilet that could also serve as a step stool and a kneeler or did we want one that would later become a training seat? Sophie became impatient, begging to get down from the shopping cart as I fretfully weighed the options. We finally walked away with a modest model that had a cushy foam seat. I decided that if she was going to be spending a lot of time on this thing, comfort should be my primary concern.
Sophia was charmed by the potty and immediately climbed into it. Fearful she’d make a habit of this, I lifted her out of plastic pot and explained what I wanted her to do with it. She pointed to the potty and shouted, “Pee!” I felt encouraged by this. Now, I casually have her sit on it when the mood strikes me or she makes one of her pee-pee proclamations—but, alas, she has yet to christen it.
Just days ago, I set her down on it and urged her to pee, making sounds that I hoped would inspire her to action. She sat there with a book, popping up when finished, her onesie flapping against her bare behind. Standing on the cold tile floor, a pool of urine formed at her feet. She looked up at me proudly, beaming, “Pee!”
Looks like Daddy’s gonna have to put up with our potty mouths a little while longer.
My loud, Northeastern, Jewish family was obsessed with poop. The frequency, duration, and consistency of one’s bowel movements was a gauge of good health and had implications for one’s happiness. I can remember, from a very young age…but lasting well into late childhood…my father bending over me, inquiring, did I need to make an eh-eh? (To this day, he will still ask me about the quality of my BMs, if I’m not feeling well.) At dinner, whether you had gone that day was considered to be an acceptable topic of conversation. Both my parents left the door open for business while they were doing their business. As a result, I grew up with a causal attitude towards and, dare I say, a penchant for toilet talk.
Kevin, my Protestant, Mid-Western husband, is quite the opposite. Poop was something that happened behind closed doors. Early on in our relationship he announced that he did not make BMs, but rather “pooted talcum powder.” I smiled at his modesty, but after the intimacy of 10 years together, the question of whether he does indeed poo like the rest of us remains a mystery to me. If he does, he has taken great pains to leave no evidence of this fact.
When we had a child, I warned Kevin that even if he did not poop himself, his daughter most definitely would—and we were BOTH going to have to deal with it. Kevin was resigned to this fact, but I don’t think he imagined in his wildest dreams how much I would want to talk about it: the color, the consistency, the frequency, the contents was all fair game.
In the early days, I took data, noting when she pooped to ensure that she was soiling the right amount of diapers each day. I finally stopped when I felt confident that what was coming out was indicative that enough was getting in. Breast milk poos were the best: mustardy in consistency, faint in order, easily wiped away. I dreaded the day when she would start to eat solid foods and her BMs would become messier, smellier, and more abundant. I even delayed solids, in part, because I didn’t want to have to deal with the fall out. But eventually there came a point where I had to feed my daughter, regardless of how it would transform the contents of her diaper.
As Kevin was generally at work when Sophie let loose with the chocolate mousse, I was the primary cleaner-upper. Which, compounded by the wrestling matches that took place atop her changing table, piqued my interest in early toilet training.
So, much to Kevin’s chagrin, I have begun a campaign of what I call poo awareness. So far, it’s been fairly successful.
If suddenly, the room is, say, smelling like rotten eggs I ask, “Sophia, where’s the poo?” She pats her bottom and replies, “poo.” Then we march upstairs to the changing station where, after I’ve pinned her, I remove the offending diaper and hold it up for her to take a good look.
“Sophia. This is your poo.” I instruct. “PU STINKY!” which is all she needs to hear to reach for the diaper to get a closer look. “Poo,” she echoes, reverently. Similarly, when changing a wet diaper, I again hold it up for her inspection. “Pee. This is your pee.” “Pee!” Sophia repeats, diligent student that she is.
Pretty soon, under my tutelage, Sophia came to want to talk about her excretions. Each morning, when I removed her five-pound Pampers, Sophia guessed happily “Poop?”
“No,” I corrected her, “pee. You went pee,” and show her the evidence.
Then came the status updates. We’d be playing in the basement, when she’d suddenly grab her diaper and exclaim, “Poop!” Skeptical, I’d give her the sniff test, and generally she was wrong, but I would change her anyway…assuming that she had wet her diaper and was aware that SOMETHING had happened DOWN THERE. Even Kevin got excited as she began to make these announcements. And on multiple occasions I caught him having conversations with Sophia about her diaper action while he tended to her needs.
I decided it was potty time. We went to Buy Buy Baby and I quickly became overwhelmed by the choices. Did we want a potty that cheered and sang when you peed on it or did we want one that had “real flushing action?” Did we need a multitasking toilet that could also serve as a step stool and a kneeler or did we want one that would later become a training seat? Sophie became impatient, begging to get down from the shopping cart as I fretfully weighed the options. We finally walked away with a modest model that had a cushy foam seat. I decided that if she was going to be spending a lot of time on this thing, comfort should be my primary concern.
Sophia was charmed by the potty and immediately climbed into it. Fearful she’d make a habit of this, I lifted her out of plastic pot and explained what I wanted her to do with it. She pointed to the potty and shouted, “Pee!” I felt encouraged by this. Now, I casually have her sit on it when the mood strikes me or she makes one of her pee-pee proclamations—but, alas, she has yet to christen it.
Just days ago, I set her down on it and urged her to pee, making sounds that I hoped would inspire her to action. She sat there with a book, popping up when finished, her onesie flapping against her bare behind. Standing on the cold tile floor, a pool of urine formed at her feet. She looked up at me proudly, beaming, “Pee!”
Looks like Daddy’s gonna have to put up with our potty mouths a little while longer.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Blowout
Sophia and I are driving over the Ben Franklin Bridge, back from Narberth where we picked up my ailing laptop, rocking out to a Southern rendition of “On Top of Spaghetti.”
The sun is beating down on the car, and Sophie is joyfully dissembling her carseat. She’s pulled the sun shade down in front of her so I can no longer see her face in my jerry-rigged system of mirrors.
“Pee-eew. Do you smell that, Sophie,” I ask, rhetorically. “Mustardy. Kind of like your baby-poo….” I glance up at the mirror. With horror, my eye lingers over the image that bounces back at me.
One foot, covered in greenish yellow poop is suspended in midair. I am reminded of the first image I saw of her during her high-level ultrasound. One perfect formed tibia, tarsels, and metatarsels, glowing white. I swooned at that foot. And now, I am swooning again—but for completely different reasons.
I am at a choice point. I can either get really really stressed about this, or I can save it up as an anecdote I’ll write about later in my blog.
I go with the latter.
One thought keeps haunting me. If that’s what her foot looks like, what about the rest of her? But I will have to wait until I get home to find this out.
We arrive, 15 minutes later. I stop the car and pause, steeling myself. Step out of the air conditioning into the thick heat of the day. Open the back door. She turns to me, her face already breaking into a smile. Her legs kicking with glee. Shit smeared across her forehead.
It was everywhere. Covering her hands. Down her legs. Staining her outfit. Ground into every crevice of the car seat. I could only hope that she hadn’t sucked her thumb in the last fifteen minutes. Striving to maintain my good humor, I carried her and the carseat into the house.
It’s difficult to know where to start with a poop-covered baby. I weighed my options. The thought of sticking her in the sink grossed me out, after all, that’s where I rinse our fruits and vegetables. I’d have to do a surface clean and then stick her in her tub. I’m embarrassed to say how many wipes I used. In fact, I won’t.
But, eventually Sophia was smelling fresh, the carseat was spotless, and I had washed my hands enough times (out out damned spot) to finally feel like I wasn’t going to play a critical role in a local e. choli outbreak.
Like all things, the incident quickly transformed from reality to memory.
The sun is beating down on the car, and Sophie is joyfully dissembling her carseat. She’s pulled the sun shade down in front of her so I can no longer see her face in my jerry-rigged system of mirrors.
“Pee-eew. Do you smell that, Sophie,” I ask, rhetorically. “Mustardy. Kind of like your baby-poo….” I glance up at the mirror. With horror, my eye lingers over the image that bounces back at me.
One foot, covered in greenish yellow poop is suspended in midair. I am reminded of the first image I saw of her during her high-level ultrasound. One perfect formed tibia, tarsels, and metatarsels, glowing white. I swooned at that foot. And now, I am swooning again—but for completely different reasons.
I am at a choice point. I can either get really really stressed about this, or I can save it up as an anecdote I’ll write about later in my blog.
I go with the latter.
One thought keeps haunting me. If that’s what her foot looks like, what about the rest of her? But I will have to wait until I get home to find this out.
We arrive, 15 minutes later. I stop the car and pause, steeling myself. Step out of the air conditioning into the thick heat of the day. Open the back door. She turns to me, her face already breaking into a smile. Her legs kicking with glee. Shit smeared across her forehead.
It was everywhere. Covering her hands. Down her legs. Staining her outfit. Ground into every crevice of the car seat. I could only hope that she hadn’t sucked her thumb in the last fifteen minutes. Striving to maintain my good humor, I carried her and the carseat into the house.
It’s difficult to know where to start with a poop-covered baby. I weighed my options. The thought of sticking her in the sink grossed me out, after all, that’s where I rinse our fruits and vegetables. I’d have to do a surface clean and then stick her in her tub. I’m embarrassed to say how many wipes I used. In fact, I won’t.
But, eventually Sophia was smelling fresh, the carseat was spotless, and I had washed my hands enough times (out out damned spot) to finally feel like I wasn’t going to play a critical role in a local e. choli outbreak.
Like all things, the incident quickly transformed from reality to memory.
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