The Two Showers Required Poop.

Potty training with Mabel is different than with Turner (and it has everything to do with their parents). We potty trained Turner all at once. Cold turkey. Diapers became a night night thing, and he picked out some flashy underwear that he loved. Add in M & Ms for every bathroom attempt, and the whole process seemed easy. What I forget about this is the fact that Turner spent nearly all of his time with us. I taught a full twelve hour load in two days a week, which gave me five days with Turner, and while I was teaching Andy or Janet was with him. He had nearly constant access to a familiar bathroom (and M & Ms).

With Mabel, however, we are constantly on the go and not regular to ask her if she needs to potty. She has a real reluctance to using public toilets, which I completely support, so it feels most convenient to travel with her little potty chair. It is a full time job getting everyone to the potty, and this doesn’t count all the time invested in attempting to use the bathroom. Mabel, for instance, feels the urge to poop long before she is actually ready to do the deed. She’ll scream “Potty!” and then thirty minutes later after six trips to the bathroom, she’ll finally sit long enough to get it out. This girl is too busy for the bathroom.

Tuesday, I teach at 10:30 am and need to finish prepping my flashy grammar lesson for the Writing in the Workplace class. Grammar lessons, by the way, must be flashy in order to encourage retention, and this is a lot of pressure. On Tuesdays, we get brother to school and within one hour we go home to breakfast and pack lunch, shower and get ready for the day. On this Tuesday, Mabel has not yet pooped, but we've sat on the potty and read several books. When you have only one hour to do all the day's prep, you start reading the short books. We get packed up and into the car with ten minutes to get to Mabel's school. Perfect timing.

"Potty!" I do the assessment of whether this is a means for getting out of the carseat or because she has to go. I ask her, several times, if she needs to poop and she consistently grunts her uhhuh. I turn the truck off, unbuckle us both, unlock the door, and rush to the potty. She sits for approximately two seconds and jumps up. I am persistent in making her sit on the potty, though her persistence is stronger than mine. We get back in the car. Just as the seatbelt clicks she shouts, "Potty!"
"Oh no girly. Mommy has to get to work. Are you sure you need to potty?"
"Poop!" She makes eye contact and grabs her crotch. "Poop."

We do the whole process again. As I'm rushing down the hallway, I hear her fart and by the time we make it to the potty, she has filled her green gingham underwear.

I take her shoes off and socks, learning from previous mistakes where a baby with shoes on will no doubt step into the exposed poop in the underwear. Plus, shoes going through leg holes creates a host of additional problems. I learned all these lessons in a single instance three weeks back. So, I remove her shoes and socks and begin pulling the underclothes down slowly, attempting to keep all the poop fresh in the middle. I notice that she didn't pee with her poop, and I'm grateful and intrigued. How is it possible to not pee a little?

"Put your arms around my neck." She does. I inspect the contents to discover the largest poop ever to come out of a baby. "Oh Mabel. Big poopy." She repeats my words. The gingham cloth makes it to her ankles and I pick up the right foot. Carefully, we ease her foot out and back safely on the white floor. "One more Mabel," but as we go to transition her to the other foot, the inside contents rub across her left ankle. In my panic, I do something wrong and within seconds Mabel's right foot is standing in the crotch of her underwear. A small poop rolls out on the floor and touches the toilet base. I shudder with a loud sound and Mabel attempts to repeat the noise. I pick her up and shake her a little bit so the yucky underwear will remove themselves from her foot. In so doing, of course, more poop falls out and lands on the top of my foot, which rests in a ballet slipper type shoe. I start the bath water to give Mabel a quick shower, and I snag the disinfecting wipes out of the closet. I work on cleaning Mabel and then on the floor while she pats shallow water in the tub. Just as I get the floor and the toilet and Mabel's potty all clean, I return my gaze to the tub. Mabel has pooped in the tub. In this moment, I can hear Andy's voice in head, "Plant based diet. Whaduya do?" I take Mabel out of the bathtub, walk her to our shower, strip my own clothes off, and we start our morning routine all over again with a fresh shower. Clearly, my grammar lesson would not be flashy come class time.