Potty Humor

The Punkin is of an age to be potty training and we are working on just that. Potty training is a mix of triumph (yes! we pee-peed in the potty!), backsliding (uh-oh, we had an accident) and occassional humor. ... Or, depending on how you look at it, lots and lots of humor.

Most of the humor deals with #2. For some reason, #1 just isn't as funny. But I have lots of funny stories to tell you about #2. For example, this weekend I left the Punkin in the living room and ran downstairs to put up a book. I was gone for 30 seconds, tops. 30 seconds. ... ok, maybe 45 seconds, but I think you get my point. I come back upstairs and immediately notice that there's an additional aroma that was not present when I went downstairs.

"What's that smell?" I ask.

"Poopy," the Punkin replies without even looking up from her doll.

"Did we poop in our pants?"

"Yes," she deadpans, just as calmly as if I'd asked if she had enjoyed school that day. The child should consider a career as a straightman for a stand up comic.

But this was still a better answer than the previous week. She had pooped in her pants and I was hoping she hadn't.

"Did you really poopy?" I asked.

She turned around, stuck out her butt and said "Here, smell."

I thought they weren't supposed to be smart-asses until they were teenagers!

As funny as these little asides were, the real coup de grace (or, should it be pooh de grace?) came last night at bathtime. I'm sure you see where this is going by now.

We had finished with the actual bath and were just playing in the tub. The Punkin stood up in the tub, reached around and started picking at her butt. I told her to stop that and she ignored me. Again, I told her to stop it and this time she moved her hand, but she got a very strange look on her face. The next second plop! plop! and two turds splashed down into the bathwater.

"I pooped," said Captain Obvious.

There was a pause from Mommy as I took this in, then I did the only thing I could do...I laughed.

Now, the Punkin was a little upset about this turn of events. She's at the point in potty training where, while she still has accidents, she doesn't like to and she feels bummed out afterwards. While I got her out of the bathtub, wiped her butt and toweled her off, she kept lamenting "I pooped, I pooped."

However, by the time she was clean and dry, she saw the humor in it, too. She ran her little naked butt down the hall looking for daddy (who, coincidentally, was in the other bathroom having a #2 moment of his own). "Daddy, Daddy, I pooped in the bath," she announced as she ran down the hall and into our bedroom. "Daddy, I pooped in the bath," she reitterated as she knocked on the bathroom door.

"Hmmm....Did you?" Daddy answered hesitantly. I don't blame him. This isn't something you hear everyday.

A little while later, Punkin in her pajamas, bathtub depoopified, I took a moment to do what any 21st Century Mom would do...I texted several friends to enlighten them with my child's latest antics. Once upon a time we would have savored this story for years, waiting for the day we could embarass her by sharing it with a boyfriend of fiance. But thanks to the wonders of technology, we can share it immediately with friends, family, and total strangers on the internet. Now, if whoever invented the internet could just invent a quick and easy way to potty train kids . . .