Blame Lynnette for this One

Continuing the previous post, how exactly does one child’s poop end up coating three children? To understand the answer, you have to understand my children’s bathroom behavior.

Abbie is good about sitting on the potty. She’ll take her seat and stay there until her business is complete, grunting if necessary. She’s never pooped in the potty, and she still won’t tell me when she needs to go, but we’re making progress.

The boys love sitting on the potty. I could even use the potty as a reward if I didn’t mind the potential lifelong psychological damage I could inflict by doing so. When the boys sense Abbie is on the potty, they strip down in preparation, and bang on the bathroom door if I lock them out.

The boys sound like they’re almost potty-trained, but they don’t quite grasp the concept. They will pee and poop on the potty, but they won’t stay on the potty. When I unleash them in the bathroom, each boy will pick one of our two potties to sit. Each will then sit for at most nine seconds before hopping down and switching to the other potty. After a maximum of nine seconds later, they switch again, and the fire drill continues until I tire of watching them run naked in the bathroom, constantly threatening to deposit something on the floor.

On the occasion in question, Ian didn’t quite aim correctly when pooping on the potty. He left a large deposit on the seat, which the boys happily smeared all over their legs as they slid on and off the sullied potty several times. I didn’t notice this because I left the boys unattended. Leaving them unattended in the bathroom is never a good idea, but I like to pretend that I’ve childproofed the bathroom.

While the boys ran back and forth, I followed Abbie to convince her to sit on the potty. While Abbie does well on the potty, I’ve needed to work harder recently to convince her to sit. Sometimes this takes several minutes of cajoling, threatening, and eventually pulling. By the time I drug her into the bathroom, she was fighting so hard that she refused to sit on the potty. So I sat her down.

When she slid off a half-second later, I saw my mistake, and it had nothing to do with potential psychological potty trauma from forcing her to sit. Abbie’s legs were smeared, Tory’s legs were smeared, and, of course, Ian’s legs were smeared. I grabbed a package of wipes and started working. When I realized the extent of the damage, I decided an early bath was appropriate.

And that is how they accomplished a three-for-one.