Life
No doubt one of the worst things all parents have to deal with, eventually, is potty training. Teaching a young child to stop randomly peeing in their diaper and to, instead, "hold it" until they make it to a toilet is a daunting task (not to mention a pretty gross and smelly one). Accidents happen, to be sure, but it’s how kids respond to those inevitable accidents that usually result in the most disgusting potty training experiences ever. Moms don’t always appreciate them at the time (OK, they might never appreciate them, really), but, in retrospect, always make for great stories.
I’m currently in the middle of potty training my son, and I’ve been extremely fortunate that we haven’t had anything too bad happen... yet. I’d say the grossest experience I've had so far actually happened a few weeks ago. My darling child was being extremely reluctant to poop on the potty on this seemingly innocuous day, so my partner and I told him he could just stand in the bathroom and do his business in his diaper. He did, but then he walked out with his finger pointed towards us. It wasn't until he was real up close that we noticed a giant brown wad of poop at the end of his chubby little finger. Yay.
We had a nice long talk about how touching poop is not only yucky but also dangerous, since you can get all kinds of fun diseases if you get it in your eyes or mouth. We’ve been without incidents since and he’s been pooping in the potty like a champ. Other moms aren’t always quite so lucky, though, like these moms who were kind enough to open up about some of their, um, messier moments:
Krista, 37
“My oldest was pants-free (in an effort to potty train). I was in the kitchen while she was watching a show on her little couch. I came back in the room and poop was everywhere, specifically on the couch. She had also gotten out about 20 wet wipes in an effort to clean herself.”
Arlene, 23
“We haven’t had any really gross experiences, thankfully. But my oldest was naked watching TV and, amazingly, we looked at her the instant she started pooping, grabbed a wet wipe, and caught her poop before it hit the carpet! She was 19 months.”
Ale, 33
“(My 2-year-old) reached into his pants and started to pull out crap (and wiped it all over his high chair). He still won’t tell me when he has to poop. You should have seen me... I was cringing when I had to bathe him. Thankfully, (my husband) cleaned the chair and bottles. Things I never experienced with my first, [so I guess] my second is making up for it.”
Melissa, 34
“This isn't my potty training story, but one my mom shared about my oldest brother. When he was a toddler, he had a bad habit of pooping on the floor and then throwing it onto their wood paneled walls. Needless to say, it blended in, and it took my mom a few days to figure out where the smell was coming from. When she caught him, she told him that if he ever did it again she would make him eat it. He did it again, so my mom got a bowl and a spoon and yelled, ‘Dinner time!’ He didn't know that the bowl was empty while she was chasing him around, but he never threw his poop on the walls again.”
Jillian, 36
“While potty training my oldest, she would remove her diaper during naptime and perform various activities with the contents. I would say the grossest would be a tie between the time she ran her dinosaur toys through the poo and along her walls and windows of her bedroom, and the time she hid a poop under one of those pin art hand mold toys. It took me a very long time to find the source of the smell that day, and when I did I was both disgusted and slightly amused at her creativity.”
Tracy, 41
“My first child was a freaking breeze to potty train. He actually never had a poop accident. So, of course, my daughter was the opposite. One day she pooped in her underwear. It was actually in kind of a perfect big ball, which made for an easy clean up so I was relieved. I ever-so-carefully pulled them down, went to flip the turd in the toilet, only to miss and have that hot ball of poop land right on my foot. In flip flops. I started dry heaving.”
Jayme, 36
“When my youngest was potty training, she didn’t quite make it to the toilet and pooped on the floor. Not a big deal! It happens. But my dog followed her, and then he... ate it. I will never forget the look on her face. And she never pooped on the floor again!”
Kate, 33
“This is my life. I have a stubborn 3.5-year-old, and a 19-month-old (both boys) who's getting way too interested in removing his own diaper. My mom told me the other day that all my stories involve poop. I officially need to get out more. Here is one from a couple weeks ago involving my littlest:
So my (then) 18-month-old had yogurt at breakfast and it got everywhere. He’d peed his pajamas so he was eating in just his diaper. He decided to announce the end of his meal by removing said (dry) diaper and waving it around. He’s due for a bath anyway, so I put him over the potty for a moment. He doesn’t go. I draw a bath. He is playing and having a great time. Siblings are hollering so I dash out for a second to settle them down and run back in.
Poop explosion. Like piles of tan rabbit turds all over the bathwater that he is oh-so-happily splashing in. So I’m frantically pulling out toys and scooping the biggest bits out to dump down the toilet and it’s just generally wonderful. Now I must point out that my bathtub is designed for an older adult. There’s this half-wall that we keep small things on, like the odd candle or bar of soap. Hidden behind some of this stuff, apparently, was a fruit fly trap I’d forgotten.
So, I redraw the bath. Tub is full, I move for the washcloth, and I see him reach up and dump said trap into the bath. Now I have a tub full of water, a poopy baby, and dead bugs.”
Heather, 43
“My little boy was very enthusiastic about the potty around 22-months-old. One evening he was sitting, naked, on his little potty as I got his bath ready. He started to cry and I went out to the living room to find he’d climbed on top of the TV stand and pooped all over it, with several turds rolling down the TV stand into the DVD drawer he’d apparently pulled out and used as a step stool!”
Adrienne, 34
“[I have a] 3-year-old daughter who is an enthusiastic helper. I was giving her a bath when she started pooping in the tub. I picked her up and put her on her potty, where she continued pooping. Then I turned to let the water out of the tub. She finished on her potty, picked it up, and tried to dump the poop in the toilet to flush it. She missed. [So she] basically threw a poop-filled potty across the room. There was poop in the tub, poop on the floor, poop on the toddler, poop in the potty, and some poop in the toilet. I had to leave the room to take a few deep breaths before I could start cleaning it all up.”
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