Oh, Pooh! 2004

I’ve just spent the last hour or so in a crappy conversation. Really, I literally have. This morning Kaylie “poop-ed in the toilet”, and I’ve been hearing all about it ever since. Kaylie is the sixth of my eight children; three years old, and as of this morning I think she’s finally potty-trained. Hurrah! (That brings me down from three in diapers to two in diapers. Hurrah!) So, I’ve been hearing the details of how she “poop-ed”, and how she doesn’t need diapers any more, and where she “poop-ed”, and how she is a big girl now, and how she “poop-ed in the toilet”. This is one poopy conversation that I don’t mind being involved in.

Kaylie and Rachel, 2004

It’s the other, more frequent poopy conversations (and play) that I find objectionable. The trouble is that with two little boys ages five and six who are obsessed with bodily functions, and three little girls in diapers our family seems to talk about poop a lot. I try to steer them away from this sort of. . .unrefined talk, but no amount of instruction, begging or threatening seems to help. Brandon and Ryan—well, they are six and five-year-old boys. They like to play “baby”, where one of them is the baby and the other tells the baby what to do and what to say. What to do usually includes lots of raspberry-blowing, long, drawn-out hissing sounds, and belching; all accompanied by giggling and talk about what was found in the diaper. (Are you disgusted yet? I have been.) And since Rachel (age two) and Kaylie play with the boys and hear them, they think it’s pretty funny too. As I said, I’ve tried everything from saying, “Nice people don’t talk like that.” to, “Stop that right now!” but to no avail.

My latest tactic was to try to ignore it, the idea being that if the behavior got no attention it would go away. So we were walking along in Wal-mart (Ryan, Kaylie, Rachel, Jessica (age 1) and me—and half of West Valley City). And Rachel says, “Mama, I fah-ted”. Some of my family found this amusing, but I determinedly ignored it. Instead I talked about toys, books, the baby, anything. Rachel repeated herself for the next three minutes or so, with a determination equal to—no, greater than mine. I finally broke down said, “OK. But we don’t like to talk about that.” An acknowledgement, which was all she really wanted anyway.

Well, in a few years Brandon and Ryan will have outgrown the fascination with bodily functions (I hope!), and Rachel and Jessica will be out of diapers. And hey! Kaylie poop-ed in the toilet this morning! That is worth talking about!

November 2004