The greatest poop story of them all!

Let it be known that on this day at 10:30 am Keenan Thomas had his first poop on the toilet!

How we did it...

Last weekend we let kept him in underpants as much as possible. The second Sharon and Paul showed up for a quick visit Keenan hid in a Rubbermaid bin and pooped in his underpants. Such a great timing.

Middle of this week I was changing a very stinky and full poopy diaper seconds before we had to be out the door for work and all the while I was thinking how totally done I was with getting poop on my hands. I pulled out the "great motivator"..."Keenan, if you start pooping on the potty you'll get to go to school with your friends from daycare". He was somewhat speechless and I could see that he was really thinking about it. The rest of week we kept on the school thing. How fun, it would be, he'd be so big, he could ride the school bus etc.

This morning we took off his diaper after breakfast and let him run around naked from the waist down. All along we told him that he'd get a lolli pop and a visit to the toy store if he pooped on the potty. One of us had our eyes on him at all times. There was lots of farting, a pee on the potty and then around 10 am he started asking for a diaper. We said "nope" if you need to poop you'll have to use the potty or the toilet. Around 10:25 he was crying for a diaper. I presented the downstairs potty in the middle of the living room. "NO MOMMY, I WANT MY DIAPER!!!!!! PUWEEEEESSEEEE". I picked him up and told him again that he'd get a lollipop and a visit to the toy store if he pooped on the potty. He didn't say anything so I told him we'd go and use the upstairs potty and read a story (it does look more comfy afterall). He sat down and then jumped up and headed for the washroom. I put his seat on the toilet and got him a book and stood in the doorway. Sean was in the shower giving encouragement and Keenan looked at me and as serious as a 3 year can be with a poop face he said "Mommy, please let me alone". Less than five minutes later "I'm done!" and there it was, a poop in the toilet! Oh happy day! No word of a lie, the first words out of Keenan's mouth were, "Can I go to school now?". Now the deal is he can go to school if he poops on the toilet or potty every day for a year. We'll keep you posted on that one!

I was one of those parents that said "my child will never play with guns"

Badass
Originally uploaded by kuckibaboo.

However, I'm pretty sure I never said "my child will never stand in a retired pool chemical bucket".

“Mommy, I can’t get this stuff off”

Those are the words we woke up to yesterday. Actually, it wasn’t the first time we opened our eyes in the early morning hours on Saturday. We woke up to Keenan jumping out of bed and quietly (or so he thought) slipping down the stairs. At one point we woke up to his power tools and some hammering sounds. Then he was calling to us “Mommy, daddy I can’t get it open” and we replied “ok, bring it up here” and then we dozed off again. Some immeasurable amount of time later Keenan was resting his elbows on my side of the bed and showing me his hands which were covered in some sort white, blobby, obviously terribly sticky, unknown substance. “Mommy, I can’t get this stuff off”. It covered his hands and had actually sealed the sleeves of his pajamas to his arms. The vein on Sean’s temple bulged as he launched into his regular line of questioning; “what have you been into?”, “what did you do?”, “where did you get that?” and last but not least “did you put any of that in your mouth?”. I think Keenan’s reply was a single “no” which furthers my belief that kids really only remember either the very beginning or the very end of any kind of lecture so may as well get it over with quickly since all that middle crap is basically just for you any ways. Sean jumped up and grabbed the child to discover his feet had trances of the same stuff. I’m thinking....gluestick, white glue, lard? None of which are toxic in this household so by my calculations we were just looking at disaster control not an emergency hospital visit before coffee and brushing our teeth. After Sean’s frustrating attempt to get the stuff off with cold water I took over (the vein was now visibly throbbing to the tempo of Sean’s heartbeat) and ran a warm bath with lots of bubbles for Mr. Messy. Sean went downstairs to assess the potential damage while I peeled the jammies off the kid. Somehow I got the stuff in my mouth and realized it had a sweet, lemony taste, not unlike the homemade marshmallows Sharon made for us last weekend! I called down to inform Sean as he CSI’d the main floor. There he found marshmallow smeared on pretty much all the furniture in the living room and dining room. Yes, there was cursing.

So here’s what happened. My sister brought me me a bag of books that I borrowed yet forgot at her place last weekend. It was my birthday last weekend so Jose had us and some friends and family over. Sharon and Paul came and Sharon brought us all her lovely homemade lemon flavoured marshmallows some of which were placed in the bag of books and forgotten until keen eyed Keenan spotted the only new thing in his environment yesterday morning, the bag of books. He went investigating and found the bag of marshmallows. I’m assuming he couldn’t get the twist tie off and that was what he was calling to us about. He likely got the marshmallows all squishy by trying to get it off and voila he had himself instant stickiness! Lord only knows how much he ate! Sean tells me it appears Keenan had tried to clean up his smeared mess (read: budding conscience) by using all the small towels from the drawer in the kitchen. I can only imagine his surprise as they couldn’t clean it up but somehow managed to stick to his hands each time he used another and another. I would pay serious money for that footage if it existed! Anyhow it all ended with us finally out of bed and a clean, unharmed child. The sticky bits we occasionally find on our socks are just sweet (literally) reminders of another failed attempt at at sleeping in.

Friggin' age demographics

Happy Birthday to me!
Originally uploaded by kuckibaboo.

Well, in less than a year I'll be checking one of those other boxes. The ones that clearly show I'm no longer in my 30's. I'll be 40-45 or 40-49. I take considerable comfort in the fact that some folks find my streaks of gray sexy. Who knows, maybe I'll start a "varicose veins are hot" blog.