Shits and Piddles

We are toilet training. This is epic. I’m so inpatient; I thought learning to wee out a doodle would be easy. Isn’t it like a hose, you can aim? As I don’t have one myself, I just assumed that wee and doodle and aiming would all come together in three days.

Why three days? A friend of a friend told me that her son was toilet trained in three days. Was he 23? Three days. Snort.

My son is almost three. And I know he is super close to learning how to use a toilet, or at least know when he needs to go.

So how do you train a kid to use a potty? I have no answers for you here, but this is what I’ve learnt so far:

1.       If you smell a pop off, a poo is on the horizon. Dacks off and get potty ready.

2.       Nude aint rude, it’s so very good. Let the kid run and watch their wee go everywhere.

3.       Hold onto those old cloth nappies. Accidents and I mean LOTS of accidents, happen. I hope you have floorboards and a good mop, oh and a dog that doesn’t eat poo.

4.       Rewards are winners. We used stickers for wees, miniThomas trains for poo. I let my son put the stickers on the potty so it looks like a trophy.

5.       Undies with your kid’s favourite TV or cinematic characters rule the roost. There is no way my son is going to want to piss on Lightning McQueen’s face.

6.       Be super positive. Dance hard when a wee makes it in the potty. Let your kid press the button on the toilet. Tell your kid that the poo and wee is going to the ocean to swim with all the rad fishies and crocodiles and really cool happy sharks (don’t tell them that if they are shit-scared of fishies and crocs and sharks though).

7.       Poo is exciting not scary. My son loves looking at his afterwards. Yep, it’s gross, but I would rather my kid be excited about taking a crap than holding it in, terrified it’s going to eat him alive.

8.      Let your kid watch you go to the toilet. It’s creepy, but it’s been creepy these last few years hasn’t it– remember that kid was in your tummy. You haven’t had a private moment for almost three years, what’s a crap in front of your kid once a day in the scheme of things. Make sure you smile when you do it.

9.       If you find a poo on the floor… whoops, clean it up, highlight the potty  is nearby if your kid needs it, but let them know that once daddy did something similar and he hasn’t done it again because he’s a big boy. Poo on the floor happens to the best of us, let’s not dwell.

10.   And finally, when you are out in the world with your kid wearing undies, take them to the nearest toilet/gutter/tree/bush/garden the SECOND they say… “mummy, I need to wee”. You don’t have any longer than a second, that wee is coming out now. Run. Carry a towel with you.

So accidents have happened this summer, my son has taken a crap in the display cubby at Bunnings, weed on the card stand in the post office, pooed in his Lightning McQueen undies so massively that I just chucked them in the park bin, and told every person he meets that wee comes out of his doodle.

It’s ok. We are not quite there yet, but it’s on the horizon. We are so close, I can LITERALLY smell it.

This article first appeared in the Autumn issue of BubbaWest Magazine.

Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina

It’s a famous line in the Kindergarten Cop flick

You know the one, where the little boy’s so slick

When he states to Arnie, in the classic one liner

That ‘boys have a penis, and girls a vagina’.

It’s stuck with me for all of these years

A line that’s shouted with peers and beers

But now with my two-year-old boy in tow

He thinks it’s something that everyone must know.

While standing in a very long bank queue

My son (who is also fascinated with poo)

Went up to a stranger, and pointed at his dacks

And shouted ‘doodle?’followed by sniggers and cracks.

The man looked at me, unsure what to do

I explained that my son had just turned two

That he was curious about the thing in his nappy

But talking about it seemed to make him happy.

The tantrums themselves are awkward enough

But how in the hell are you meant to handle this stuff?

There’s a time and a place for this chat, to be frank

But it’s not the time, nor the place when we are in a bank.

It’s no different at all when we go to the zoo

Where there are plenty of doodles and a whole lot of poo

We explore all the gardens and eat picnic feasts

But it all gets exciting when we check out the beasts.

Just last week, we watched the elephants play

My son glued to the fence on this rainy day

Then a male elephant weed and boy it was a hit

And on top of that he took a massive shit.

Oh the squeals of delights, from my son and other boys

Who were all lined up, attracted by the noise

The other parents and I all rolled our eyes

I was thankful that the excitement was no surprise.

In my household filled with blokey gents

Where it’s rare if anyone is wearing pants

I feel left out because I’m ‘missing a tail’

But at the end of the day, I’m proud to be female.

This ode first appeared on BubbaWest.

Missing Person

I want to let you in on a little secret. Actually, it’s a pretty big secret, because I feel a little embarrassed about it. But it’s not a ‘do-not-tell-anyone’ secret like the time I got so hideously drunk off five beers and spewed in front of my son, or a ‘please-don’t-judge-me’ secret like the time I used a tea-towel  tied up with a ribbon as a nappy and took my son to Coles’ to buy nappies (I was totally and ashamedly out), or a ‘what’s-wrong-with-me-medically’ secret where I laughed so hard I weed my pants a little moment.  No this is a secret that I want to tell you because I don’t think I should feel embarrassed about it. So instead, I want to share this secret so other people can say: “Yo, Ali… I’m in exactly the same boat. Let’s be mates and freaking rule this world.”

Knocked down, not up

I recently wrote an article encouraging people to find their inner Chicken Crimpy.  The piece was about taking a chill pill and stop over-commiting myself to a million things at once. So I did. For six days. Then we started our renovations.

When we were heavily pregnant we lived in renovation land. Our house had been gutted, meaning there were no walls at the back of the house. No bathroom, just a portaloo and portashower in the front yard. Our kitchen was a camping stove and a BBQ for three months and we drank water from the front garden tap. Our neighbours all knew that I peed at 4am every morning because they would see our front light go on as I tip toed to our portaloo where I would try to wee in a plastic bowl as quietly as possible in the dead of the night. I couldn’t even shut the portaloo door because my stomach was so achingly big.

Our builders during this time were so patient, especially when I started mat leave and was hanging around the house growing bigger by the minute. We formed a special bond. One that saw the builders put spare towels in the back of their utes, ‘just in case of an emergency trip to the hospital’.

This bond also meant that our three or so builders, who were strangers to us before our renovations began, got to know us so very quickly as they lived through our pregnancy. I can’t even tell you how many times our main builder would walk past our bedroom and see me lying on my side in undies and a tank snoozing with my mouth open, dribble pouring into the top end of my pregnancy pillow while the rest of the long sack was wedged between my legs.

I didn’t care after a few weeks. It was hot. 40 degrees hot and I was so hungry and pregnant. I would eye off their eskies, excited for smoko just to see what treats they had brought in. Once they saw me eat a WHOLE watermelon in one sitting with a soup spoon.

So here we are again. In renovation land. Finishing the last bits of our whole house renovation. Finally. Almost 20 months after our builder received a call from my husband asking if they could quickly put the toilet in as we had just had Alfie.

Here we are, living in renovation land, camping in the rear of our house like a Little House on the Prairie, except this time instead of being severely knocked up we have a toddler running around knocking everything over.

What’s harder? Renovating while pregnant or renovating with a toddler?

My husband and I are no less feral. Instead of passing out at 11am in my undies drooling on my side, I’m running around like a headless chook in the morning wearing just a bra and dacks trying to sort out lunches, breakfast, attempting not to fist fight my husband and always looking for a goddamn shoe. Trying to squeeze a shower in and attempt to be a loving, happy family before our builder arrives is a joke. We just let him see how real it is. He’s newly married, perhaps the Webb family visual is a perfect form of contraception for him.

Today is Friday and it is my ‘day off’ from work. Normally when my kid is snoozing, I take my pants off and have a nap on the couch.

I’m wondering if this is pushing the boundary a bit too far. I mean, what’s my excuse? I have plenty.  But instead I might smash a box of Chicken Crimpy’s. At this moment, it’s the best way to find one within.

This post first appeared on Bubba West.

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.

Blah Blah the manky rabbit

I live in a house full of boys: my husband, my son, my dog and Blah-Blah the skanky stuffed rabbit. Before I go into detail about living in such a masculine (insert stinky) house, I need to tell you that I grew up as a rose between two thorns, growing up as a middle child with two brothers in the country, surrounded by BMX bikes, dams and land, sweet, land. I’m fully aware of male behaviour.

Way before we had Alfie, my husband Reggie and I introduced an invisible foal into our house. His name was Tony. Tony arrived after I had had enough of the discussions about leaving the toilet seat up, not replacing the toilet paper, not putting the toilet paper on the holder the right way (waterfall), the wet towels on the floor, the lid not put back on the milk container… you get the gist.

When Tony arrived, we suddenly had someone to blame:

Me: “Who left the skid in the toilet? There’s a brush, you know!”

Reggie: “Arrgh. Tony! I’ll have a word with him. Stupid horse.”

Happy marriage.

Me: “Are you hung over? You stink!”

Reggie: “Tony threw beer all over me last night and then punched me in the face. That’s why I stink and have a headache. Stupid horse.”

Happy marriage.

Reggie and I stopped arguing, domestic life was grand and easy to manage.  Then Windsor, where we were living at the time, became too hip and busy. A man was shot in the leg out the front of our house, which increased the rent, and Tony couldn’t offer us the safety we needed. So we decided to move to a safer area. We moved west-side and left Tony behind.

Our new house was pretty and didn’t have that boy stink that would follow Tony into any room. I bought flowers weekly and baked cakes that made the house smell good. Then I was knocked up, we knocked our house down and renovated heavily pregnant. Dickheads, but really funny ones!

Now I have a house FULL of boys. I recently came home to a trail of muddy footprints running down the hallway leading to the couch, a plastic motorbike lying on its side as if it was thrown there by a giant, two matchbox cars on the floor staring at each other ready to be smashed together, an odour of beef pie in the air, a pair of Converse with ratty shoelaces thrown in the corner, a half-eaten sandwich sitting in the dog’s bed, a toenail on the ottoman, a pair of size 2 trackies covered in spaghetti crumpled at the base of the high chair, a penis doodled on the shopping list, a Duplo tower toppled in a pile, a dog biscuit which looked like it was mistaken for a rusk, and a hunk of meat thawing on the bench. I felt like I had entered a cave.

Strangely though, the house was deadly silent. For a second, I thought we had been burgled. The house resembled the baby aisle at the Yarraville Coles. It had been ripped apart. Shredded. Destroyed.

It was so strange that there was all this destruction, but no one to blame. I became instantly lonely amongst the mess. I missed Tony.

Then I heard it. A really squeaky and long fart from behind the curtain, followed by that familiar pushing sound and a muffled giggle or was that a struggle. I knew what was going on, but I played dumb. I started cleaning up. I could hear Cheef Dog start to pant and Reggie trying to breathe heavily behind the curtain. It was obviously stinky behind there. Cheef Dog came running out, straight at me then stopped and rubbed his bum across the ground. Next came out Reggie and then Alfie holding Blah-Blah. All running at me, all covered in mud and dried grass. They both screamed BOO! And I jumped. Alfie’s face was red as a tomato. He stank.

I yelled at Cheef Dog to stop licking his backside and thanked the boys for their little surprise.  Reggie picked up Alfie to go and change him and the poo had leaked out the side of his nappy (the men in my household don’t wear pants at home). My husband had dipped his index finger in the poo. It was gross, but I was treating it like it wasn’t my problem. Reggie knows that our son likes to poo behind the curtain.

There was a mass tidy up. The house became liveable again, for a second. Then the boys started running around the house again, pushing burps, kicking balls, drinking sippy cups on the couch. It was chaos. I kicked the boys out and sent them to the park. Blah-Blah went along for the ride.

Within 15 minutes of the boys leaving, Reggie called me. Blah-Blah had jumped ship. He had jumped out of the pram and Reggie was backtracking their original path, but he was nowhere to be found. Alfie was panicking. Cheef was nervous. Reggie was scared.

I went out to join the search party, hoping I’d find him along the way. We searched high and low for an hour with no success. I put a call out of Facebook hoping one of our neighbours had found the jam-soaked, booga-stained designer knitted rabbit. No luck. It was getting dark and our time was becoming limited. We were about to hit family ‘peak hour’ – tea, bath, book, bed. Alfie was beside himself.

We were only a few houses away from our own when I saw a little rustle in the bushes. I put my head over the short fence, and sure enough, there was Blah-Blah in a state of disarray, stinking of grog and sweet smoke. I picked him up and pulled the dried leaves out of his ears. I shook the dirt off his back and fixed the pom-pom tail attached to his behind. Blah-Blah couldn’t even string a sentence together.

We took him back home without saying a word. It was obvious that Reggie and I were disappointed. We got through peak hour, cleaned Blah-Blah up and put him to bed with a panadol.

Reggie and I tidied the house again and fell in a heap on the couch. I looked at my tired husband and he shook his head.

“What’s wrong,” I asked?

“It’s Tony. He’s back.”

And sure enough he was. Corrupting my little family of boys, leaving the toilet seat up and bringing the stinky smell with him. Something tells me that our little foal is back for good. Sigh.

This post first appeared on Bubba West.