The Turd that Broke the Camel’s Back

If you’re a regular Mommin’ It Up reader (and really, why wouldn’t you be?), you know it took me just shy of 493 years to potty train my son Joshua. I gave up a couple of times, and re-started, but the FIRST time I gave up, for the longest period of time, was last September when Joshua was about 30 months old and I was about seven & a half months pregnant with my daughter.

Let me tell you about the day I finally realized the boy just wasn’t ready. I was preparing to take a shower, and I thought I’d be a genius and bring his little potty chair in the bathroom and remove his pants in case he had to go while I was getting clean. I did just that and then got in the shower. A few minutes into it when I’ve got shampoo in my hair, I hear him say, “I don’t have to go potty.” Translation: “I REALLY have to go potty but I don’t want to sit on the potty.” I stuck my head out of the shower. He had “that look” in his eye. You know, the look that signifies that a bowel movement is imminent and unstoppable. Here’s how it went down:

Me: Joshua, do you have to go potty?
Joshua: No, I don’t have to!
Me: Joshua, sit on the potty!
Joshua: No I don’t have to!
Me: JOSHUA SIT ON THE POTTY!
Joshua: I don’t have to go potty!

Joshua then proceeded to brace himself against his play table that we kept in the bathroom to entertain him, get wide-eyed and red faced, shake, grunt, and push out the biggest turd I have ever seen. I mean it was like, half the child’s body weight. It shot out of him with incredible force and broke into several pieces on the bathroom floor.

Did I mention I was 7.5 months pregnant, and soaking wet, with shampoo in my hair?

It was at that moment as I gazed with soap-filled eyes upon the many pieces of turd on my bathroom floor, and my little boy’s astonished face, that I realized this child was NOT going to be potty trained before the second child came along! So I rinsed my hair, jumped (okay, lumbered) out of the shower, toweled off my ginormous body, and cleaned up the turd. Then I put a diaper on my son and put potty training on the shelf, deciding I’d much rather clean poop off my kid’s behind than off my bathroom floor!