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.

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.