Poop!

If you've ever wondered why guys enjoy toilet humour, I think it is because they found it funny as kids and never grew out of it.

In our household, the poop jokes have started.

Noey's always had a sense of humour, though most of the things he finds funny are of the slapstick variety. He'd look at pictures in his books and peal with laughter over some of the incongruous images or listen to stories and laugh over calamitous situations. "So funny!" he'd exclaim. I guess this is one of the reasons why Richard Scarry's books are among the favourites in his home library.

Noey's own first attempts at humour revolved around mistaken identity. For example, he'd point at some one else and call them "Mummy!". And when we ask him, with mock incredulity if that was Mummy, he's gleefully say "No!" and burst out laughing.

Well, now, it's all about poop.

Ask him what he saw at the Sydney Aquarium and he'd happily tell you that "Noey saw a shark poo-poo!" (DD had pointed it out to him. Thankfully for me, I missed the sight.)

Ask him about the Australian Museum and he'd tell you, "We saw insect poop!" There was a tank in the research area full of stick insects and yes, their droppings were all over the bottom.

And then as his pièce de résistance, he massacred the classic Zacchaeus song into the following:

Zacchaeus was a little man
And a little man was he
He pooped into the tree!
And he said, "Zacchaeus you pooped on the floor!
I'm going to your house for tea."

He came up with that in Sydney but I think we'll be hearing it for a while to come yet.

On the plus side, he has at least channelled some of that interest in poop into something positive. It's been some weeks in the making but it seems we are finally making some headway with potty training.

There was a time when I thought he'd be going to Primary school in his diapers. As an infant, he never cried when he had poo in his pants and even up until recently, I've known him to be able to fall asleep with a poopy diaper. I kid you not. My Mum tried to start him off on his journey to diaper freedom some months ago but met with very minimal success. I must admit it was probably also because I wasn't keen and didn't follow up much when he was home with me. However, shortly after he turned 2, I thought I'd bite the bullet and try to get him on his way. He was about the right age and since he communicates really well and has no trouble following instructions, I figured I should stop being lazy.

I read a bit online, flipped through a few books, then decided to take the advice of friends (including my Pastor's wife, who has 6 kids herself) and just take off his diapers. I told him repeatedly that he had to tell me when he needed to pee and poop, popped him on the potty whenever I thought something might be coming, and just hoped for the best.

Of course it was an unmitigated disaster. We were changing him and wiping up messes the whole day, everyday. All I can say is: thank God I had my trusty helper's help. In a way it had to be done because with him in diapers all the time, I couldn't tell each time when he went or needed to go. By the end of the week Noey himself was so fed up with the process, he insisted I kept his diapers on after naps.

We went on holiday shortly after so I decided to stop and re-start again when we got back, which we did.

Somewhere along the line, he learnt how to release when peeing. So the next 2 weeks or so were more positive -- when we popped him on the potty, he would go. Admittedly at that point I felt like I was training me not him, since I was the one watching his fluid intake and assessing if it was time yet to put him on the potty. He'd pee about half an hour after eating, and then about an hour after that. I just asked him regularly if he needed to pee and if he hesitated, I popped him on. There were still misses of course but they got less frequent.

Poop was a little trickier since you actually had to catch him in the act, though there were a couple of times when he ran to my helper after he'd started and we were able to let him finish properly on the pot. Still, it was more than a bit messy!

Over the last week however, he developed better control and although he'd wet his pants slightly, he was able to stop without wetting the floor and allow us to quickly get him on the potty to pee.

Then over the last 2 days, he's been able to tell us before he poops and do it cleanly in the bowl. And today, he managed to tell us when he needed to pee as well, twice over. It's been a major breakthrough.

Of course, all this is only when he's not wearing his diapers. We still put him in them for naps and at bedtime, and also when we go out. I think I'm personally not ready to deal with public toilets yet!

Step by step, I hope we are on our way to diaper freedom.

And I think I should probably stop with the poop talk for now -- I'm getting as bad as my son, talking about poop all the time!