The Poop Song
Yes, you read that right
Any of you who have read the things I’ve published here are likely wondering what the heck is wrong with me because this is not exactly the kind of title you would normally see come across my profile. However, just bear with me, please.
If you don’t find poop amusing, don’t worry that this is going to be turning into a gory, disgusting tale of diarrhea. Although, despite the fact that you have never seen me write about such things, truth be told, poop stories can be funny, depending on the mood.
But, I digress. This story isn’t specifically about poop. This is actually a story about my youngest daughter. Now, before you start to wonder what kind of mother would talk about her kid’s poop on a public platform, let me assure you that I have her permission to share this (also, remember that it’s not actually about the poop). I’m very conscious about making sure that I don’t humiliate my children, so anything that I ever write about them, I clear with them before I put it online.
Now, spilling the tea
That being said, I’ll jump into the “tea.” When my youngest daughter, now age 11, was potty training, she did not appreciate having to sit on the big-people potty to use the bathroom. It scared her. And by big-people potty, I mean the one all of us used. The fact that it was so tall, the fact that it made noise, the fact that there was so much room between her behind and the water. She was concerned about every aspect of the toilet.
Now, I’m not a monster. She didn’t have to sit on the big-people potty all the time. When we were at home, of course, she had one of those fabulous little potties that looks like a throne, and when she flushed it, it sang her a song because she was so groovy for going to the bathroom in her potty.
However, I quickly realized that I couldn’t just carry said potty into the grocery store and have her sitting on it in there (although I actually did take it with us to start with, but that’s another story altogether). It wasn’t that simple.
And for any of you who may be feeling concern that I was pushing her too fast in potty training, she had shown all the signs of being ready, and she would sob inconsolably when she did poop in her pants. She was ready, just leery of the distance the poop had to fall and the occasional splash it incited.
The big-people potty is your friend
So, I started working with her to try to help her overcome her fear of the big potty. I assured her that the big potty was her friend. She needed to be able to go when she felt the urge. Potty training is hard, and it was time to learn to use all potties.
Spoiler: it didn’t go very well.
At home, it was a chore. But we were making very small amounts of progress, and I was proud. It was a lot of work, but I was determined to be able to leave my house without fear of a bathroom disaster, and I was determined to help her feel comfortable on an actual toilet.
It did not play out that way.
The horror show that developed
Once, when I was in Walmart and I could see the signs that she was about to have no choice but to go in her pants (she would tell me she had to pee, but she didn’t want to do number two on the big potty, so she would try to pretend she didn’t need to go if I didn’t have her potty chair with me) I rushed her into the Walmart bathroom, and I put her on the big potty.
Now, let us not forget that she is actually afraid of her poop falling so far when she’s on the big toilet, so she is not just going to take this calmly.
She’s screaming, “No, Mommy, no! Don’t do that to me! Leave me alone! Why do you hate me?” (She feels things deeply, this one.) Mind you, the thing that I am “doing to her” is not allowing her to climb down off the toilet while she’s actively using the bathroom into it. I did not want to clean up a mess of poo when there was a toilet literally right in front of us.
So, a very nice, concerned lady from the next stall over says in a loud voice, “Do you need some help? Is everything okay in there? Your child sounds very upset. Are you okay, sweetie?”
What was I supposed to do?
Well, as you can imagine, I was not amused. I mean, kudos to this woman for standing up for a kid because every adult should be an advocate for a child who may be experiencing abuse. But all I wanted my child to do was not crap her pants. So, I did my best to explain to this woman that my daughter was not being harmed (but isn’t that what every child abuser claims?) and that we were fine.
My child does not like people, so she ignored the woman completely, giving no assurances that she was not being abused, which I am sure went a long way in increasing the woman’s concern levels. I had no control over this, though. The child hated strangers, which is normally a good thing, so ignoring her made sense. In fact, my child hated people so much that she would have rather pooped 14 times on the big-people potty rather than talk to this woman who was trying to save her.
So now, my stomach is in knots, envisioning this woman calling CPS because she thinks I am viciously abusing my daughter behind the door of the stall.
I know the woman has not left because I can see her concerned feet just chillin’ outside the door.
It was my only choice
With my heart in my throat and tears threatening, I do the only thing I can possibly do, and the one thing that works the best at home. I start to sing “The Poop Song.” If you don’t know what the poop song is, you likely do not have a potty-training toddler or even a child who has already been through potty-training and is now a big kid. If you don’t know what the poop song is and you have never heard it, you need to hear it. Listen to it below, and then we can continue.
How things played out
So, returning to the humiliation of the fact that this woman now standing outside the stall we are in thinks that I am a child-abusing monster, my embarrassment (and traumatizing of the stranger) was not complete. Because I knew that to have any chance of my youngest child giving in and not resisting using the bathroom, the poop song had to be used as a distraction from her anxiety about the big toilet.
So, I do something that is high up on my never-wanna-do-this list. I begin to perform the poop song with all of the gestures required to amuse a toddler, and with all of the enthusiasm that I did not feel in a Walmart bathroom having just been accused of child abuse.
If you actually took the time to listen to the fabulous poop song that I shared, you will remember the line, “I feel it. I feel it.” Now, this was one of my daughter’s favorite lines. And when we performed the poop song at our home while she was on the big potty, we played it up pretty strong because she was a very animated child, and you had to be animated if you wanted to hold her attention.
So, having just been accused of child abuse by the lady next door, I began to sing the lyric, without thinking about how it might sound. At a level of sound not conducive to being in public, I started to screech, “I feel it. I feel it!” while my daughter started to laugh/cry very loudly. (This was actually a good thing. It was the step before her actually relaxing enough to go poo.)
The lady knocked on the door of our stall. Again, I hear the words, “Ma’am, your daughter does not sound like she is okay.” The woman now sounds even more concerned, and for a minute, I can’t help but wonder why she can’t just leave me alone and let me coax my daughter into leaving her crap in the toilet, where it belongs.
The retreat of shame
In a rush of horrific realization of what the woman must be thinking after hearing the words that had just come out of my mouth since she was obviously too concerned to leave the bathroom and leave my child at my mercy and likely has never heard the poop song, I decided that it was fine with me if my daughter pooped her pants.
I asked her if she still felt like she needed to go, and, like I knew she would do because she didn’t want to poop on the big potty, she assured me that she no longer felt any urges. So, I wiped her little behind because she DID need to go and was actively fighting it, pulled up her pants, and swung out of the bathroom, into a retreat of shame stronger than anything I had ever experienced before in my life, or hopefully ever will again.
The woman looked relieved when she saw my daughter, now all smiles, with her arms wrapped around my neck and kissing my cheek in relief that no one was going to make her go to the poo. There were no police waiting for me, much to my relief, and the lady finally felt okay enough to return to her grocery-shopping expedition.
My child and I, however, did not get groceries. How was I supposed to pick out lettuce while in fear of being arrested? I did the only thing I could do. I fled the scene of the crime. I took the child home to her toilet throne and let it sing to her about her poop accomplishments instead.
I considered never going back to Walmart again. I considered never leaving my house again. My epic failure was too all-encompassing. Someone thought I was a monster who was terrorizing my child, and it did not sit well with me. I really hope that wherever that lady is right now, she knows that I would never hurt my child for anything in the world. It is the last thing I would ever consider doing.
And thank goodness the child was successfully fully potty trained not long after that. I very often miss her being little, but I do not miss the moments of teaching her the big potty was friend, not foe. 😉
With distance comes the ability to laugh at this story, though it was not funny at the time. You literally never know what’s going to happen in your journey of raising kids, but every single moment is worth it, even the ones that make you cry at the time. 😛