We Need to Talk About Poop

By Joe Barker

A hot, damp feeling spreads across my lap, and I realize that, once again, Marty is peeing on me. Resisting—just barely—the urge to scream, I plunge into the sea with him, giving us both a much-needed wash. Today I've been peed on twice and poopped on once. I think it's fair to conclude that potty training is not going well. Marty has always been extremely generous with bodily fluids (if only he was as generous with his toys and cake, but that is a discussion for another time), so this is far from the first time I have been so doused and decorated. You will also, I'm sure, have had similar charming experiences. Before I consider the joys of potty training, I think there is time for a potted history of this child’s bowels and my interactions with their work.

A lesson in poop

As a young man, I always thought that diapers and poop would be the worst part of being a parent. As Marty was born, I worried whether or not I would be able to deal with dirty diapers. Turns out that they are very far from the worst part of parenting. Quite early in my fathering journey, I started looking forward to dirty diapers as they broke up the tedium of childcare. An actual task rather than just holding a baby or looking at it lying on the floor until it was ready to nap again. Time positively flew when there was a diaper to change. 

With the sleep deprivation and general panic of the first few days of parenthood, I found that I was already a seasoned hand at diaper changing before I had time to think about whether or not I found it revolting. Of course, it helped that those first poops were all milk and so small and inoffensive. Plus I’d never realized the level of mental effort required to change a diaper; who can worry about how disgusting poop is when faced with such an intellectual challenge? Newborns feel so fragile that I had to focus on not dropping him off the changing table or inadvertently ripping off a leg. Then there was the need to mop gently with cotton wool that was damp, but not too damp, warm, but not too warm. All this at 2am, then 3am, and again at 4:30am—when was I meant to find the time to be disgusted by poop?

Extreme diaper changing

I quickly learned that changing tables available in restaurants and public toilets were some sort of Darwinian test that Marty and I were doomed to fail. You, I'm sure, are better people than me, or possibly octopuses, and thus able to balance those precarious tables, precious babies, and an exciting combination of clean, poop-covered and partially poop-covered clothes, wet wipes, toys, and limbs. I cannot manage these tables and the balancing acts they require, and would soon run out of arms and realize that Marty was wriggling determinedly toward a precarious freedom. Deciding that floors are much harder to fall off than tables, I've since changed Marty almost exclusively on the ground. This provokes a mixture of amusement and disgust from passersby, who frequently try to direct me towards those terrifying devices I’m trying to avoid.

Poop on the move

Undoubtedly, the worst Marty pooping incident so far was on our first flight to England, when an ill-fitting diaper—there has never been an official inquiry, but it was undoubtedly poorly fastened by mommy, whose protestations of innocence are laughably false—leaked from a sleeping Marty all over daddy. Unstrapping myself, grabbing the diaper bag, and getting to the washrooms without waking my wife or smearing the plane with excrement ranks as one of my great life achievements—a life short of truly great deeds—yet my challenge had hardly begun. 

Whoever designed plane toilets and their baby changing tables had small circus contortionists in mind rather than a large father with all the grace of a drunken buffalo. I was in a cubicle with a changing table, but if I lowered the table, I could no longer reach the diaper bag, and if I opened the door to make more space, the lights went out. By the time I'd solved this puzzle and extracted Marty's clean clothes, the mirror, changing table, and, somehow, the ceiling were smeared with poop. Once I’d cleaned them enough to lie Marty down, I discovered that I then couldn't reach the bin while holding Marty on the changing table. 

Some 20 minutes later, Marty was finally clean and clad in fresh clothing. No one had been hurt, bad language had been kept to a minimum, and most of the surfaces were fit for the next bathroom user. There just remained the comparatively simple task of changing daddy’s entire outfit while keeping Marty out of the toilet and off the floor. I returned triumphantly to my seat to find my wife still asleep and that another hour of our flight had passed. Time flies when you’re playing with poop.
 

Toilet training: it's funny when it happens to other people

Somewhere around Marty’s second birthday, potties appeared in our house. Initially, these were widely ignored, except when used as toy carriers or headgear, but there came a day when a first pee was done in a potty, and there was applause and congratulations all around. After that came triumph after triumph: a first poop, asking to take his pants down, taking his pants down. The boy’s a pooping genius, we declared. 

Naturally, there were hiccups along the way. Well done for sitting on your potty, but next time take your pants down before peeing. Yes, that is an amazing poop, but please don't run around the house showing it to everyone. Yes, we do tip it out now that you've done it, but, and this is very important, we tip it out in the toilet, not on the floor. NO, Teddy doesn't want to swim in it. Yes, mommy did use lots of loud and interesting words when you tripped and dropped the full pot on her, and yes, I know daddy laughed, but that doesn't mean we should do it again.

Despite these incidents, he seemed to have got the hang of using his potty. How wrong we were. Toilet training regression has hit with a vengeance. Now he'll rip his diaper and pants off and proceed to spray pee and poop anywhere but in his potty. The floor obviously, but also off balconies, into toy trucks, bins, and Lego bricks, onto books, cushions and clothes—nothing is safe. It seems like willful malice on his part when he had been so good at using his potty, but it probably isn’t and he will eventually use it again. I hope!

Photos from Canva.

About the Author

Having enjoyed taking his son to BAMBI playgroups over the past months, Joe is excited to volunteer with BAMBI. He and his wife moved to Thailand from the UK in 2018. In 2021 they were delighted to be joined by their son, Martin. They love exploring Thailand as a family, especially anywhere with a playground or sand.