Misadventures in Potty Training

You know the saying "shit happens"? Well, today it certainly did. Our day started out fairly uneventful, Mekhi and I lounged around the house in the morning and he took a nap at his usual time. When he woke up we went to hang out with our friends "Auntie Calinda" and Cinque at the Fernbank Museum to see the dinosaur exhibit (Mekhi never tires of dinosaurs).

The kids had fun and we wanted to end the day with an early dinner. And that is when the trouble began.

We promised the kids noodles but wanted to try a new place so we decided to visit a family friendly Italian restaurant. We pulled up but things looked scarce so Calinda left Cinque in my care while she checked it out. As luck would have it, the restaurant was closed for "holiday" this weekend. We decided to go to our usual noodle house that both boys love. We quickly placed our order and as usual the kid's food and our appetizers came within five minutes. Good stuff. That is until we ended up waiting 20 minutes or more for our entrees. Calinda and I sat plateless as people that arrived long after we did received their food. We became antsy and finally asked about the server about the delay.

Meanwhile, Mekhi and Cinque ate quietly and after a bit of a fuss, our our food finally arrived. Shortly thereafter, Mekhi started complaining of a stomachache. I explained to my girlfriend that he has a tendency to hold his poop and getting him to use the potty for number 2 is nearly impossible. I already knew he had to go because he did his usual and placed his hand on his butt at the museum, a sure sign that poop was imminent. At the restaurant I assumed he was suffering from holding and couldn't do it any longer. He complained no less that 3 or 4 times so I finally took him out of his seat and he walked around to take care of his business.

Five minutes later as a familiar smell wafted through the air I asked him if he was finished and he replied no. He continued to walk around and play with Cinque and after I finished eating I took him to the bathroom. WELL, this is where the virtual shit storm begins. I took his pants down and all hell broke loose. Shit was running down his leg, was on his shorts and in his shoe. That's right, in his shoe!



And just the other day I was reading a blog post about shitty diapers and thinking how lucky I've been not to deal with such a thing out in public. Until today.

Today was all about ensuring that I left the single bathroom in reasonable condition upon leaving and trying to clean up my child enough to be seen in public. After sitting him on the toilet, dumping as much as possible into said toilet and then wiping everything down with hand soap, wipes and paper towels it seemed my job was done. The operable word here is "seemed". The air was still heavily laden with the scent of recent fecal matter but I chalked it up to the nearly clean but dirty diaper in the trash and the sheer enormity of the load my 2 year old dropped.

We practically ran to the table to pay our bill, Mekhi sans pants (luckily he is still young enough to get away with it - for five minutes anyway) and I told Calinda about the epic poop. She quickly pointed out that there was evidence smeared all over my shirt(which explained the stench).





She retrieved a bag from her car for Mekhi's soiled pants (there was no way in hell I was placing shit laden pants in my new Hayden Harnett bag. It is less than 2 weeks old, no way, no how! ) and we proceeded to the parking lot. While there we exchanged stories of poop - babies and otherwise but we soon parted ways.

I mooned my girlfriend with my thong -NICE and my son started jumping around like a wild man, it was time to go. On the way home I tried to keep my nostrils closed because the smell from my shirt was damn near unbearable. Mekhi fell asleep (thank God for small miracles)

and despite my nasal discomfort I stopped for a sundae because for me, even on the shittiest day in history, ice cream makes everything better.