TIL: There's Nothing Quite So Horrifying as a Deuce in the Pool

Like many little girls, every night I dreamed of one day finding the perfect husband (check), living in the perfect little house (check), and having three perfect little girls (check, check and check).  

The one thing my happily-ever-after imagination neglected to dream up was how said perfect little girls can sit for 30 minutes on a public toilet that smells so bad you feel like you have to brush your teeth, while you make up songs complete with a dance routine about how awesome it is to vacate their bowels, only to have them get up, unsuccessful, and not two minutes later take a massive dump in the swimming pool.    

Potty training may be the single most frustrating thing I've ever done in my life.  

One would think that there is some sort of important evolutionary instinct in human beings that we would find pooping on a toilet preferable to pooping in our pants.  

One would be mistaken.  

It's hard not to take it personally. It's not about them any more — potty training has evolved into a task that is exclusively all about me. It's me who succeeds and it's me who fails. I eat M&Ms right along with them to celebrate a successful trip to the bathroom and I give myself pep talks with a 'we'll get it next time' attitude as I scrub pee out of the carpet.  

Last week I stupidly let my 2-year-old swim without a swim diaper. I made her sit on the potty for nearly 20 minutes before we went in. The four of us (me, my 4-year-old, my 2-year-old and 1-year-old) were crammed into a public restroom stall the size of a phone booth – that's about 2x2 for all of you born after 1985 – as I asked repeatedly, “Are you SURE you don't have to go?  You're SURE?  SURE?  Really SURE?”  

I gave up, confident that she didn't have to go. I mean... what normal human being who had to go would hold something in for 20 minutes when they were already pants down sitting on a toilet?

After about 2 minutes in the pool I looked over and saw she had the thousand-yard stare. Her eyes were red rimmed and a vein was popping out of her temple.  

It was happening.  

I ran to her through the kiddie pool, the ankle-deep water forcing my legs into slow motion. By the time I got there it was clearly too late; it looked like she was hiding a Boxer tail under her bikini bottoms. 

I then had to nonchelantly play it off, deflect attention from myself while very VERY VERY OH SO PLEASE GOD DON'T LET THE TURD FALL INTO THE POOL VERY carefully leading her out of the pool as I pulled my other two kids into the locker room screaming “BUT WHY MOM?  WHY?  WHY ARE WE LEAVING???!!!”.  

Once in the locker room I tried to figure out how to do the least amount of damage while removing a potato-sized turd from a skin tight wet swimsuit. Again, with four people crammed into a phone booth, one of which has a fascination for toilet water and the other with poking her head under the wall and screaming “PEEK A BOO I SEE YOU” to whatever poor soul chose the adjacent stall.    

The logic is baffling to me. I get that she doesn't want to take time away from playing to do something as meaningless and unimportant as clear her body of toxic waste, but a deuce in the suit means we have to go straight home. And, more often than not, never show our faces at that place again.

I didn't have an easy time potty training my 4-year-old. I worked tirelessly for a year, and about a week after I gave up, finally accepting the fact she was going to college in a diaper, she just decided she was ready. She tossed the diaper and never looked back; I can count on one finger the number of accidents she's had.  

But my 2-year-old is trickier. A few weeks after her second birthday she decided she was so over diapers, tossed them, and didn't look back for about three months. But like a calorie-free corn dog, I should have known it was too good to be true.

I went from three in diapers to one in diapers and by then I was too tired to blink, much less question if she was really ready.

And I'm sort of at a loss. So this is where you come in, my oh so knowledgable Mom and Dad reader friends. Do I go backwards and put her back in a diaper? A pull up? Strap her to the bathtub and throw food in every once in a while? Keep her in undies and will you come help me when she poops on the slide?

You're really doing yourself a favor by helping me... who knows when our paths will cross and you'll come face to face with the Turdinator.   

(TIL= Today I Learned)

Stock Photo via iStock