Poop Comes Out My Butt

As with most toddlers being potty trained, our firstborn had a fascination with watching the pee and poop come out. At first this was the main source of urine going all over the floor as the hips tilt up and the pee up and over the seat, all over the floor, however we have since (thankfully) moved past this. 

It was actually a turning point when our two-year-old was sitting on the toilet, enjoying the relaxation, when he came to the realization that "poop comes out my butt." 

Before you potty train a toddler, you never truly appreciate the practicality of the diaper. The ability to leave the house at almost any given moment knowing that, barring a blowout or some other catastrophic event, your child’s secretions will at least be contained within this receptacle for the time being, is not nearly as appreciated as it should be. 

Also, I feel there is an unrealistic expectation about potty training that the amount of poop and pee you will have to deal with decreases. Perhaps it’s a boy thing, but I found that to be wildly inaccurate. I have never in my life cleaned my bathrooms so often and yet had them smell of urine every time I walk in. If you’re ever in need of motivation to do a super deep clean of your toilet, have a two-year-old over. By the end of the day you will have an undeniable urge to bleach every inch of that bathroom. Unfortunately, if you live with said toddler, your efforts will only win you a brief moment of clean until the next time they have to use the potty. For the record, my boy still sits to pee. It’s just some weird phenomenon that the pee goes into the toilet, down, and back out again under the seat. 

Luckily for us, Calvin at least caught onto the whole pooping in the toilet concept pretty quickly. Granted, there were some unfortunate events in the first week or two when poop showed up on the floor as he was running around. For the record, it is possible to poop while running. However, he soon got on board with the idea of getting to sit on the toilet for five to ten minutes singing to himself or reading a book while he pooped. At first I thought it was a way to stall nap time while he was at school but he has continued to take his sweet time on the toilet. On second thought, maybe it’s just a male thing and he’s preparing himself for later in life when he gets to “take his 15” away from the kids and chaos by escaping to the solitude of the bathroom. As a mom, I guarantee you I have never had 15 consecutive minutes in a bathroom without someone knocking on the door or just walking in.

All of that said, potty training has provided our house with a fair share of entertainment in the last many months. Yes, I did say many months. For those of you who haven’t yet done this, it’s going to take months. In fact, one friend told me that the entire process to get to the point of zero accidents can reasonably take a full year. Not to terrify or dissuade you, of course.