But first, let's stipulate who the "we" is. It's me and my parenting partner -- our day care provider. We frankly didn't even tell my beloved husband that we were doing this. Poor guy didn't even know what was coming.
So yesterday morning, we got up, got breakfast, and I put him in a pair of cloth/vinyl pants instead of a diaper, and off to day care we went. When we arrived, he immediately went under the dining room table and pooped. I felt tremendously guilty about it, but I pointed it out and fled the scene of the crime, thanking God in heaven for the woman he brought me to, who I love far more than she knows for being such a wonderful, willing, and supportive third parent to my son.
I got home last night, and lo! there was my son in the second vinyl/cotton pants arrangement, that I'd taken with him for the trip home. I didn't push going to the potty, and sure enough, as it was time for bed, he was wet, but just wet. Okay. Not a big deal. Cleaned up, changed into a diaper for the night, and went to bed.
I had NO idea how things went during the day yesterday, but this morning we gamely went for round two -- and I put him in a vinyl/cotton pants arrangement and off we went. The report was that after the pooping incident, he'd reluctantly (read: crying hysterically the whole time) sat on the potty, and that during the course of the day, all three boys had managed to pee on the rug, which was now outside.
So I went off to work where the challenges pale by comparison with potty training.
Tonight, I arrived home to find my beloved husband instructing my son in the fine art of reading an LL Bean catalog while sitting on the potty. And he got a lollipop reward for sitting gamely, though producing little.
The horror began shortly after.
We went for a walk, and then came up to watch SHREK for the 300th time in 4 days. And when I began changing him into his pajamas, I caught a whiff of something that made my blood run cold. Cloth pants -- poop. Oh no.
I convinced him to pause Shrek and come into the bathroom, and what came next was Benny Hill-esque, and really only lacked the soundtrack, so please, for effect, just sing it quietly to yourself in your head. I peeked into the pants. Not just poop -- no, he could have generated a little pile of rabbit pellets or one of his more "sturdy" bits -- it was a little pigsquish of poop. I inhaled one last time the clean air of the bathroom, and began peeling the wet, squishy pants off him. Got them to his feet with little ill effect, and asked him to step out. First foot okay, second foot okay -- clear! We made it! NO! He lost his balance, and stepped directly back INTO the pants, collecting approximately 80% of the poop onto the bottom of his foot. I quickly dropped the pants to grab ahold of his foot so he wouldn't run off that way, and thought "oh dear God, what do I do now?" No paper towels in reach, no toilet paper in reach -- but if I really stretched.... REEEEEALLY stretched.... I could get the box of wipes.
Ten wipes later, I had gotten most of the poop off of his foot, but there was a nasty pile of wipes stuck to the bathroom floor in a very unsanitary fashion. But, as I told my beloved son who was whimpering quietly through the whole process -- Hey! Everything can be washed! Even Mommy.
Got the boy cleaned up, and managed to find a Target bag to collect up the wipes, and then use more wipes to clean where the wipes had been, and the little bit of dirty rug. Then I took my bottomless son into the other room to get a diaper on for the night.
And then it dawned on me. The pants. The other 20% of the poop was on the inside of the pants. Dear God, what do you do NOW? And it dawned on me -- WIPES! So I carefully wiped out the interior of the pants, and then *ew!* soaked them clean in the bathroom sink. With everything contained in the pitcher from the potty and the Target bag, I left my beloved and now mostly clean son watching Shrek, went down to regale my darling husband with the tale, and take the evidence out to the trash and into the laundry room, respectively.
And then did one last ritual that seemed appropriate to this milestone in my life. I did a shot of tequila.
Other Jews would say Shehekianu:
Blessed are you, oh Lord our God, Maker of the Universe, for giving us life, for sustaining us, and for enabling us to reach this moment of poop.
Me? Didn't even dawn on me. But I did appreciate God handiwork in the distilling of cactus, and its combination with lime. Yay God! Nice thinking.
My boy is in a diaper for the night, and two pairs of pants are bouncing around on "sanitize" mode in our washing machine, for which I also say "Thanks, God."
More reports as they happen. Wish us luck.
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