A Tale of Two Poops

For the last few months, we've been casually getting Milkbaby acquainted with the potty. It wasn't a conscious decision to start "potty training", if that's even what we're doing, more that Milkbaby has shown some consciousness of his bodily functions and an inclination to give it a go. We've had a few laugh-out-loud-amazing *waving arms in the air in delight* moments, and a few oh-my-god-there-appears-to-be-shit-everywhere total parenting fails.

Tune out now if you don't want to hear my Tale of Two Poops.

Poop number 1

I left Milkbaby, who had successfully done a small poop in the potty already, to go pants free for an hour or so, while I was cooking dinner. "Pah!", you're thinking, "there's her first mistake...what an amateur!". Twenty minutes into dinner prep, Milkbaby comes into the kitchen and announces triumphantly: "big poo!"

"Really?!" I exclaim with enthusiasm, all the while thinking don't panic, it's probably a false alarm.

"Where? Show me."

He takes my hand and leads me into the bathroom.

"Here it is!" he yells, pointing excitedly at the potty, which, to my great relief, contains a small poop.

"Yay! There it is!" I yell, genuinely excited and somewhat relieved. He'd gone into the bathroom, pulled out the potty from its storage place under the bathroom sink, and sat down and done his business. Awesome. This. Development. Is. Awesome.

Poop number two

A few days later, the same scenario. I let him go pants free while I'm making dinner. After a little while, he comes to me and says, proudly, "big poo!". I follow him, this time, gulp, into the hall, where he points to a small, and thankfully solid, poop on the carpet in the middle of the entranceway.

"Oh! It's not in your toilet!" I congratulate him on doing a poo and thank him for showing me where it was, and then suggest that maybe next time he could do one in his potty, which I point out.

I leave him pants off, thinking that he's probably done with ablutions for the evening. This is the point at which the more experienced among you will be yelling "NO!"

A few more minutes pass. Milkbaby comes back to me, again announcing "big poo!"

I follow him, this time into the lounge, a rising sense of dread. There, smack in the middle of the couch is a very big poo. And in the middle of the floor, another poo. And down the back of his legs, more poo. And as he runs giddily out of the lounge, more poo falls on the floor.

I won't bore you with the aftermath.

But that, my dears, brings us to the close of The Tale of Two Poops. One which went so right, and one which went so so wrong.

And the moral of the story? I'm open to suggestions on that one.