She called the shit poop!

I apparently offended the delicate sensibilities of some reader in Columbus, Ohio last go-round because I deigned to talk about poop, MY POOP, coming out of MY ASSHOLE on MY BLOG... which apparently, someone made this reader in Columbus, Ohio read at gunpoint, perhaps at the end of a bayonet, or maybe this assailant was about to drop Columbus's children into a vat of acid or something. Because that's about the only rationale I can provide for why someone would be so viciously offended and disgusted that they had been so very brutally forced to read what I've chosen to write about on my blog.

I hope you and your children are now safe and your fragile notions are at ease, Columbus.

So... in recent news, I have shit only in appropriate venues. But I am still going to talk about poop...




Next order of business: other people shitting places that they shouldn't be. By "other people," I mean my daughter, because apparently she's been learning somewhere... probably the TV... that it's perfectly acceptable to shit anywhere you please.

My friends... I think we're on the cusp of potty training.

She now announces pooping before it happens. This either means that I have a child who is becoming more aware of her bodily functions, or she's some sort of Poop Psychic... and if it's the latter, I need to totally market that shit. (Literally.) Her disdain for dirty/soggy/slightly damp diapers has escalated to the point of furious screaming at me if I hesitate for the slightest second after I've been alerted to the problem. She's like the ADT of diapers.

So I think potty training is coming. We have a training potty, which has become her favorite seat in the house, and also a lovely bowl that she eats her afternoon fruit snacks out of. I'm aware that toilet confusion is a little bit of a genetic thing in this house. She's a big fan of her new "Let's Go Potty" book...

...which, I have read ad nauseum, at her request, and have realized that "potty literature" for toddlers kind of...um... sucks. What these kids need is the cold hard facts. Things their parents are forced to learn the hard way, like "Don't hold your pee in for an entire 12 hour Greyhound trip, because even though that potty looks yucky and that hobo may try to rape you, it's not worth the worst urinary tract, and eventually kidney, infections of your life." or "If you only knew the horrors that await you if you don't go poopy in the potty RIGHT NOW."

I guess I'm okay with it being potty training time. I always said I'd wait til she made indications that she was ready, and really, she is. So let's rock this out. Flying Spaghetti Monster, Vishnu, and all other deities I have screamed obscenities to are all aware that I'm really tired of cleaning poop off of walls and cribs and blankets... since she loves to take her diaper off and go all sorts of Pollock on every reachable surface. (In case you ever see her nursery and wonder why there's a roll of duct tape on the changing table.) So really, I'm okay with this new development in child rearing.

Especially because I can't wait to lock her out of the bathroom when SHE has to take a shit, because seriously, that's just hilarious.

Again.

There are some things that a rational, mentally competent adult should never do or say. One of these things is the phrase, "I pooped in a Wal-Mart shopping bag." But perhaps even less acceptable is following that preceding sentence with the word, "again."

It's not like I set out with a mission to poop in receptacles not intended for feces -- or anything aside from toilets. And this time around it wasn't really my fault. Okay, it wasn't my fault at all. The only mistake I made... okay, the TWO mistakes I made... was eating buffalo wings for dinner in a sauce I hadn't previously tried, and leaving a toddler unattended.

So I set forth one morning recently with my intention being to have a very normal day, filled with toddler wrangling, laundry, and pooping in toilets. Shortly after waking up -- after a night with friends in which I ate aforementioned wings -- I changed Punk and set her free to terrorize the dog and my otherwise tranquil house while I set out to make breakfast.

I heard the bathroom door slam shut. Punk's newest fascination is opening and closing doors. So when I heard the door slam shut, I didn't apply much thought until about two minutes later, when, as I stared at the bowl of oatmeal making its rounds in the microwave, I felt an angry, unhappy turn in my stomach. This is the point where a rational adult would walk herself to the bathroom and take care of necessary business. And while I'm hardly rational...or an adult... that's what I did. Then I got to the bathroom door.

I turned the handle.

The handle did not turn.

My daughter had locked herself in the bathroom.

The only bathroom in the house.

There is no actual key, just a series of tricks with a bobby pin and patience.

And dear god this horrible concoction in my intestines is not waiting for this.

It's at times when you really have to take a shit that you find yourself utilizing problem-solving skills that would make the Pentagon green with envy. It's like a mental Jenga as you try to weigh out your options as efficiently as possible, all the while praying to whatever deity will listen that maybe... just maybe... you won't shit your pants.

I mean, really. What do you do in this situation? Run to the neighbor's house? Yeah, hi, my daughter locked me out of the bathroom and I'm about to erupt with explosive diarrhea all up in your business if you don't let me use your bathroom. Nope, doesn't happen that way. So I called upon past experience and I sprinted to the kitchen, grabbed a couple Wal-Mart bags out of the little dispenser my grandma made me in college, double bagged, and no sooner had I completed that, did the full components of my bowels explode into it in just the knick of time.

Yes ma'am, Helpful Hints from Heloise. In a pinch, you can recycle your shopping bags as a quaint solution for when your toddler locks you out of the bathroom and you're suffering from mercilessly explosive diarrhea.

Sometimes I feel like an asshole for not buying one of those reusable shopping bags when I go to the grocery. Then I think about things like this, and my seeming avoidance of actually shitting in acceptable receptacles, and I think... I'm recycling anyway, right?

Cop out.

Yeah, not a real post right now, but here. Go ask me stuff. And I'll answer with stuff.

Do it. Do it immediately.