Poos and wees

We’ve been thinking about toilet training. Our son isn’t ready, I don’t think, but perhaps over summer he will be? We have bought a potty and like everything plastic introduced into our house, this one has caused a whole lot of excitement.

Alfie has been pouring cups of water into the potty and both he and the dog drink out of it. The potty gets dragged across the floor and shown to anyone who comes over for a visit. No one else is allowed to sit on the potty. No one is allowed to touch it either. God forbid.

The potty has caused so much excitement that my son keeps taking my hand and showing it to me in the bathroom. He has no idea what to do with it, but he likes looking at it and showing me how to take the lid off it and drink out of it. Sigh.

We’ve been using the words ‘poos and wees’ in our house for a while now. Ever since we discovered that Alfie liked to poo behind the curtain. When we see him heading in that direction we ask him if he is going to do poos, usually his raised brow, red fierce face, hunched back and clenched hands leaning on the wall say it all.

When my husband or I go to the toilet it’s a huge ceremony. Alfie always wants to watch and wave bye-bye to the poo. It’s always so exciting to press the flush button and to see how the toilet paper goes around on the holder.

Some mornings after a poo ceremony, it’s really hard to move on from this farewell display to go to the office and take on serious meetings about serious stuff. Sometimes during serious discussions at work I might get a call from my husband who will explain to me the ins and outs of a new poo dance that Alfie has devised or a story about the fascination with the toilet. It can be very hard to switch back to writing documents and speaking with managers.

Prior to the last few months, I had never been to the toilet in front of my husband. It was the one thing I held onto. My one last piece of dignity. Since the fascination with all things bathroom has kicked in, I’m now showering while my dog, son and husband clean teeth, do wees, play with the potty, fix the toilet roll holder, close and open and close the toilet lid, pull the towel off the rail, look in the toilet, throw things in the bath, talk about poos… the list goes on. I can’t even do that secret wee in the shower that no one ever admits to.

So now that I go to the toilet with an audience, what dignity remains? I have no idea about this toilet training thing apart from the many discussions I have had with my husband about putting down the lid. I still continue to lie to my husband that I have diarrhoea and I shut the door of the bathroom and secretly play Tetris on my phone. My husband recently said that I should go and see a doctor as I had been sick in the tummy for some time. I think my private time is almost up.

I would love to know where you go from here. Once your kid grows up, can you revive any sense of mystery about yourself? Will there ever be a time where no one knows that you’ve done a poo?

Until that time arrives, I’m making the most of my toilet time at work.

This post first appeared on Bubba West.