August 27, 2004 - Friday
Every parent probably has at least one of these stories, some awkward moment dealing with the bodily functions of a child. When I heard these types of stories before becoming a parent I thought of them as kind of embarrassing, and perhaps they are on some level. But, heck, once you've changed diapers for some number of years, and likely cleaned up after children in many other ways and from every other of their orifices, actual embarrassment runs a bit thicker.

In fact, "poop" is probably more often something to be celebrated and that was the case today, but not entirely. I'd taken Jeremy and Harry to the "church tower playground" and we'd been there only about 10 minutes when I lost direct sight of Jeremy for a little longer than I'd have liked. He's fine running around the playground, but it'd been two days since his last bowel movement and he often goes and hides in order to do his business and that's trouble now that he's in underpants. What's more, Mary had just introduced him to a new snack, dried prunes, and he'd loved them.

When I called, Jeremy quickly emerged from one of the church tower spires with a worried look on his face. "Oh no," I thought, but before I could even ask he said, "me need to poop." We've been trying to encourage this for weeks and asking represents major progress, even if it was only because I happened to catch him at just the right moment. We ran over to the porta-potty beside the playground and, sure enough, Jeremy did it quickly. He was proud and so was I and we all soon hit the playground again with renewed energy.

Of course, while he was still sitting in that porta-potty I asked if he had anymore coming. Not surprisingly he said, "no." I'm not sure I believed him even then, but we were inside a porta-potty amid all of the not-so subtle ambiance such a location has to offer. Lingering there just to make sure really didn't seem like it was going to be well-received, nor would it have felt much like the positive reinforcement he needed for asking to go in the first place. And, hope springing eternal, if Jeremy asked once he would ask again, right?.

So, I put him down and we went back to play. And, we had fun all together for five minutes or so before Harry went off in one direction and Jeremy is a slightly different one. Unfortunately, when I noticed Jeremy the next time a very short time later he was walking slowly and gingerly away from where I was. I called to him, but he just stopped, barely turning his face and saying nothing.

The next 10 minutes or so are at the heart my story of awkward times and bodily functions and they all took place inside that same porta-potty, a place with no running water, only cheap toilet paper, and hardly a spot where you'd wish to set down anything, even clothes that would go directly into the wash. The prunes had served their purpose. I stood there with one foot in and one foot out trying to keep the door ajar so I could see Harry, but Harry's four-year-old curiosity and idle play with the porta-potty door only added to the discomfort.

Eventually, I had Harry hold the door of the porta-potty open while I ran to the car for a spare and dusty leftover diaper from under the front seat. That diaper is all Jeremy wore in the car back to our house, his other clothes in a pile on the floor of the car. The trip took only five or six minutes, but no one in the car was particularly comfortable. Jeremy was not because he was siiting in the car with just a diaper on having soiled everything else and probably negated the proud feelings of just a short time before. Harry was not because I had eventually just told him to just stop asking questions for a little while. And, I was not because, like my two sons, I would have much rather prefered to remain at the church tower playground than to have spent the last ten minutes inside a porta-potty trying to clean fecal matter from my younger son's person only to go home and finish the job in the bathtub with a young self-conscious boy trying to come to terms with potty training.

Interestingly, as Jeremy stood on the bath mat with me rubbing him dry with a towel I saw him look toward the counter where the trains were waiting in their packages. He did not ask for a train. My guess is that he was unsure what would or should happen. He had succeeded wonderfully at first today, then had an accident that made everyone rather tense. I hadn't been all that sure what to do about the trains myself, but it became pretty clear fairly quickly seeing him deal so bravely with the situation.

I told him I was very proud of him for his asking to go poop. I told him that trying to use the potty was the most important thing and that if he is trying his best then accidents aren't important. I suggested the second poop probably kind of snuck up on him too quickly. He agreed with a nervous "yeah." I said again that as long as he was trying, like he did today, that's what matter most. "Yeah." I asked him which train he wanted and he smile a happy and relieved smile.

It actually worked out well with the trains, too. One of the packages I'd gotten had two tanker cars, a yellow Fuel car and a black Tar wagon, and I'd been little torn about whether he'd get one or both the next time he used the toilet. When I asked which of those two he wanted he only smiled and, somewhat surprisingly, picked the black tar wagon.


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