5890/18910
I don’t think that there could be a better way of bringing me down to earth from my weekend of living the high life, than putting my son on the potty this morning. My wife has been a strong advocate for getting the kids used to not shitting in their pants from an early age and though he is far from potty trained, we’ve been putting Ernie on the pot when we suspect he might have poo in him for a good few months and he definitely understands what’s going on. He’ll give it a go and with a fair degree of success.
So post breakfast is one of his favourite times to go, so I got him up to the potty pretty quickly and he sat down. He read some books (well looked at them - he can’t read yet), including one about going to the potty, where often he will dump his load at the same time as the baby protagonist shouts “I did it!” Ernie will poo with a sense of triumph. We also have a Sesame Street book where puppet Ernie (as a baby) learns to leave behind his diapers. Not all the books are about pooing though. We don’t want to give Ernie a complex.
Though the joy with which any excreta ends up in a receptacle must surely warp us all at a young age.
Anyway Ernie looked like he was trying to poo, but stood up and nothing had happened. I was kneeling beside him and he leapt up (the speed with which he can now get off the potty and bolt for the door is incredible) and stretched out his arms to hug me. It was a beautiful moment of a child’s love for his daddy and he stood on my knees and hugged me. And then I felt something hitting my shin and realised he’d jumped up in order to dump his entire load on to me. After five minutes on the potty he did his whole and not insubstantial business in one second and I looked down to see hour variously sized turds on his bedroom carpet, having bounced off me.
Hey, if dad likes me pooing, then imagine how impressed he’ll be with me pooing on him. The juxtaposition of the joy he’d had at embracing me and what he was doing out the other end was undeniably funny. I don’t think I’ve ever been less annoyed to be shat on. Though I have never been someone who has found any pleasure in the idea of being someone’s toilet.
Luckily the poos were pretty solid and had fallen without skidding. So I just had to pick them up with a tissue and put them in the potty where they belonged. That’s nothing. Five years ago handling poo would have made me queasy and would have been done very reluctantly, but since I’ve had two kids and a dog, I have no reservations. Only a sense of wonder at the size of turds that my tiny baby is capable of.
I didn’t poo-shame him. It’s not a good thing to poo on your father, especially without your father’s permission. But he did it with a smile on his face whilst basically giving me a Judas kiss. I love you dad - oh look what I’ve done. I hope no one gave him 30 pieces of silver.
To be honest I am quite annoyed that my kids have given me so few funny poo and wee stories. It’s the main reason I had them.
But I am impressed by his comic timing and clever misdirection, so all is forgiven.
