Why yes, how'd you guess? ANOTHER POST ABOUT POOP

About five minutes ago, it was like someone swung a gigantic mallet at the Potty Training Gong hanging right beside my head. There are almost 200 collective comments on the three posts I've written concerning potty training my adorably infuriating son, and without going back and making a scientific study of it, I'd say about 85 percent of the comments that refer to difficulties with potty training are referring to the POOP SIDE OF THINGS.

Ok, so maybe I'm an idiot. I didn't read any books or articles or consult anyone who knew what they were doing before I started easing us into this potty training thing. We'd been talking about it and trying to drum up some interest but I hadn't really thought about our general approach or anything and then one day, Asher announced that he was pooping, and I asked if he wanted to sit on the potty, and when he didn't answer, I plopped him on it anyway and BAM! A turd! And he was proud of himself and we were proud of him and then we had general success with pooping in the potty for the next few weeks. However, I stress WE had success, because as I have said before, the most he ever did was announce that he needed to poop in the potty and we did the rest for him.

It seriously never occurred to me, NOT EVEN AFTER READING 200 COMMENTS ABOUT OTHER CHILDREN HAVING DIFFICULTY MASTERING THE BUSINESS OF POOPING, that we should have considered starting with the pee. I am slapping my forehead and MOANING over here. We haven't even ENCOURAGED peeing in the potty! WHY DID THIS NEVER OCCUR TO ME? I just figured poop would be easier to master because it's usually a once-a-day event that we could time correctly. And yet, it makes total sense that kids would balk at using the potty for number two: I mean, just for starters, my kid has spent the last two-and-a-half years of his life pooping STANDING UP. And now he's supposed to sit! I AM STILL SLAPPING MY FOREHEAD. If this isn't proof that parenthood = winging it, I don't know what is.

We did have a good moment last night, when I'd stripped Asher of his diaper after 14,000 false poop alarms and refused to replace it with a fresh one what with bathtime looming. I instructed him not to pee on anything while he played, and five minutes later he wandered over to the potty, sat down, and peed. We made a Very Big Deal out of it, and I suddenly felt like maybe it would all turn out ok, and that someday soon my child would willingly go to the bathroom by himself. And then we went upstairs for bathtime and on a whim, I pulled out a pair of the big boy underwear we had bought a while ago and got him all excited to try them on and then...

Oh, you guys. He looked so big and so different, all skinny arms and legs and I know it was just a pair of underpants and I am not usually the kind of person who would do this kind of thing but I... I burst into tears. He is not a baby any more. I knew this, but I hadn't seen it. I hadn't seen it. And right then it hit me, like a sucker punch to the gut, and Dave took the underpants off of him and started the bath and while the water ran in the tub, the kids ran around the train table naked and I curled up against my husband and wept.

It's not that I don't want my children to grow up. I guess I just didn't know it was happening. It made me think of something Amanda wrote a couple of years ago, when her son Alex was three or four, and about to start preschool. She said she was suddenly very very aware that she and her son were probably as close as they would ever be right at that moment, and that from that point on, he was going to start needing her less and less. I think that's what I saw last night, wearing underpants.

Comments

[Elizabeth]

Only you could write such a touching post about poop. Really really beautiful.
And I should have warned you about the big boy pants. There is something about seeing that tiny booty in the underpants...like time flashes by in the blink of an eye.
Just the other day and he was a wee one and now he was a boy.
Off to give mine an extra pat.

[Navigating the Mothership]

Never would have thought I would end up tearing up by the end of that post given the title. But I did...oh, my heart.

[Stacey]

You just made me realize that I'm going to see that in about 2 years and that made me so sad that my eyes welled up with tears. You made me cry. You made me cry at the end of a post that started out with poop.

[She Likes Purple]

Oh Emily. Kyle's birthday is Friday and I know he's just one and still a baby but I AM SOBBING RIGHT NOW.

[maggie]

No, they need you more and more - just in different ways. The bond only gets stronger.

[Amy --- Just A Titch]

I don't mean to be creepy, but little boys in those cute little underoos are about the cutest thing EVER. You are such a great mom, Em---I have no doubts that you and Asher will still be close, big boy underwear or no.

[ANNIE]

Crying over here. I look at Christopher at least once a day and marvel at how someone can be so little and so big at the same time. I feel like now we're close because nature makes it necessary. I can only hope that as time goes on we'll be close because we BOTH choose to be so.

[Shannon]

Yes, it's true--pooping in the potty is almost universally more difficult for toddlers than peeing. Every child I've ever known has mastered pee potty training before poop potty training, including my own.

[Megan]

My eyes are welled up with tears, too. The "babies no longer needing their mamas as much" topic always gets to me.

[Swistle]

OH I KNOW. No more dipes makes for very big-kid-looking kids.

[Katie]

damn it Emily!! that is the first time you have caught me off guard and made me cry at work, i usually can see it comming and shut off the emotional valve before it happens, but I didnt think about it with the POOP post :) My son is almost 2 and i can just imagine what it will be like to experience that!

[Natalie]

This is so sweet and so true... also, though, while he may not be needing you as much as he's getting older, he'll WANT you just as much. They're still little, even as they get bigger. Promise.

[Mrs. D]

I don't even have kids and this post made me cry. It must be so so hard to watch your baby grow up.

But he'll need you - forever. Just in different ways than he does now.

[Karen]

I have a picture of my firstborn wearing his first pair of big boy underwear. I made him hike up his shirt to show them off. I was sooo excited, and yes, a little weepy, but I am of the mindset that is kind of thrilled as they get older and more autonomous.

And yes, some kids train pee before poop, and some train poop before pee.

[Parsing Nonsense]

Awwww, your relationship will change but it will never go away!

Is it sad that I kind of get choked up about this very same thing and my son isn't even born yet? Because soon he'll be out on his own, breathing and digesting all by himself, and then after that? He'll be eating food that didn't come from my body! Woe! He's so big already!!

[amanda]

Right there with you - when we began the potty training saga a few weeks ago, I started crying - just because I couldn't believe we were already HERE, knowing in about five seconds, she'll be off to college. Oh here I go, getting teary again.

[Danell]

And now I am going to look at both of my kids at bath time tonight and burst into tears. I just know it.

[Amy]

Crying. Into my ravioli.

[Manda]

Oh Em! Our babies!! It's so hard ... if they don't grow up, then they aren't living life. But when they do grow up? They move forward and on and become more and more separate from us. Their mothers. THIS IS SO WRONG.
(I'll be he looked pretty cute in his big boy pants, though. WEEP!)

[Carrie (in MN)]

My fourteen-year-old, taller-than-me, big foot, gawky, voice-cracking teenage son still: leans into me for a hug, grabs my hand and tucks it under his face when I wake him in the morning, and lets me pamper him especially when he's sick...but he also, now that he's grown: shares the joke/funny story/cool new song with me and offers me his arm to cross the icy street (although he calls me old woman as he does it).

It does change, but it gets better and better, from my vantage point.

[Suzy Voices]

Ohhhhhhh, honey. Been there. :-( But also so happy that he peed!!

[Amanda]

No no no. I am still SO close to my son who is about to turn 9. Boys love their Mamas.

[Trish]

My son just turned 4 and is, like Asher, all skinny arms and legs and "Cars" underwear. Now I'm tearing up at work. Thank goodness for the private office!

[april]

I'm glad I read the comments, because I thought it was just because I'm pregnant and have ridiculous hormones that I was crying just now, and I'm glad to see it's not just me. How sweet.

And I might have to cry after we start on the potty-training bandwagon in the next couple weeks, but for a different reason.

[Natalee]

Tearing up here as well, though I have no children. However, I'm Aunt Natalee to some super great kids, and every little milestone I see of them growing up breaks my heart a little each time.