A Meeting to Remember

Kelly and Beckett have their ears on and they're watching our every move, too.

Just as Pebe was serving up homemade mini-pigs-in-a-blanket for her trio of beloved grandsons, I dismounted and clomped in the door in my tap shoes. I washed my filthy hands (I had been fixing grimy bikes at the Trips for Kids shop) and joyfully grabbed a seat at the table with my three sons.  I delighted in observing Kelly carefully eat his meal, dissecting each savory morsel, first, picking the doughy “blanket” off with his teeth before chomping the juicy “piggy.”  Beckett and Rhys enthusiastically joined in and beamed as I, for reasons unknown, halfway through dinner, belted out a few verses of Annie’s “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow.” (Dinner is always better with show tunes, don’t you think?) With our chins up, arms raised and hands shimmying like a true Broadway chorus, we all shrieked, screamed, and sung, as best we could muster, the crescendoing finale, “It’s on-ly a day aaaa-waaaaaaay!” and gave ourselves a rousing round of giggling applause. 

It had been a busy week.  It was already Wednesday and the boys hadn’t sniffed a bar of soap since their pre-Easter dunk and delousing on Saturday.  At some juncture, while chowing on mass quantities of piggies and their tasty blankies, Rhys crapped himself.  As she frenetically cleaned the kitchen, Pebe could smell Mr. Rhys’ ripe britches from the kitchen sink.  Collectively, we stunk like an old man farting in a mud puddle.  After cleaning their plates, the boys enjoyed one small piece of Easter candy each.  With a fresh layer of chocolate film smeared on their chins, the boys where served orders to march and "get soapy."

Rhys and his hot load of something special, a bit shower-phobic these days, was assigned to take a bath with Pebe. I led Kelly and Beckett into the master bath for a shower.  Beckett was a bundle of energy after sucking down a bite-size chocolate Easter egg for dessert.  He was crowing about subjects unknown and was wiggling his naked little ham hocks and doing dangerous silly-spins, I call them, on the slick glass tile floor.  In an effort to save him from additional head trauma, (see the blog entry Beckett: Small, Human, Crash Test Dummy) I snatched him mid-twirl and plunked him down in a seated position next to his mostly naked big brother.  After Kelly pulled off his last sock, ready to shower, he turned to Beckett and said, “Let’s have a meeting. Here’s your wine. Here’s mine.  Drink up.” Kelly tipped his head back and drank from an imaginary wine glass.

For the record, I enjoy a beer or two every so often, but I don’t really drink wine.  Catherine has, actually, been on a health kick and for the last 6.2 weeks has not sipped a single glass of wine or consumed anything containing alcohol.  We both, on a regular basis, host “meetings” for our various charitable causes where wine and beer keep the agenda flowing and attendance higher than without. While this tale of Kelly’s micro meeting, like a punchline devilishly delivered by an edgy comedian, is humorous it also uncomfortably conveys a jolting shock factor.

I try to teach the boys something new everyday – helping them discover new worlds in a book, introducing them to unknown neighborhood flora and fauna, or simply coaching them to, triumphantly, remove their own muddy shoes.  Kelly’s comments to his little bro certainly taught me, for better or worse, we teach them unintended lessons with every word, gesture, and action we make in view of their observant eyes and attentive ears.  I hope I can teach them, both with my actions and words, directly and obliquely, the right lessons they need to grow, thieve and be happy young men.   With consolation, I conclude, I haven’t ruined them, yet.

 

Rhys, before....

And after.

Tale of Poo, Part 62: Splash Down

Beckett is rocking a huge salad. I wonder why everyone thinks he's a girl?

1/27/11

After a productive meeting with our Trips for Kids board chair, I dashed west and mounted my road bike for a one and a half hour spin up Deer Creek Canyon.  I dressed for the 50 degree, sunny weather at the bottom and froze my ass off as the waning afternoon sun vanished just 15 minutes up the canyon.  As I forced a big gear, puffing, and grinding upward, the air chilled and the frozen road surface crackled under my wheels.   I climbed for 45 minutes, ignoring my numb fingers and block ice feet.   The speedy decent was truly painful – brain freeze via bike, the same sensation as drinking a Slurpie too fast - and all I could think was, “I’m the luckiest man alive.  I’m the luckiest man alive because when I walk through the door my three tiny sons will beam, squeal ‘daddy’ and waddle, rush, and stampede to hurl themselves into my arms.”  Or something awesome like that, I imagined.

Well, it turns out, in my exercise-induced haze and freezer-burned mind, I slightly overestimated the gallantry of my homecoming greeting from the boys.  I threw open the door at around 5:30 p.m. to embrace my crew and didn’t hear a peep.   Hmmmm?  Silence is a rare state in our house during the pre-dinner, post-nanny, chaos time.  The hush was interrupted by Catherine in the kitchen asking, “Who wants another piece?”

I peaked around the corner and before me my trio of boys were mowing down a frozen pizza, working in silence, devoted to the task at hand.  Mommy spotted me and said, “Hey! Look who’s here.”  Kelly, Rhys and Beckett all turn toward me and, with mouths muffled by half-chewed bites of ‘zza, chorused, “Daddy!”  Their enormous smiles, especially our messiest of the messy eaters Rhys, were stained, like sloppy circus clowns, with bright red pizza sauce.

We were scheduled to go out with friends in an hour to continue Catherine’s birthmonth celebration, (a single day has never been enough for my bride), so Catherine gave me an equally welcoming, tomatoless smile, a peck and asked me to sit with the monkeys while she showered and did her face.  I happily accepted this duty and started chatting up the boys, “How was your day Kelly?’ I asked.

After thinking about the question while taking a long slug of milk from his neon green sippy cup, Kelly informed me,  “Rhysie didn’t take a nap.”  

Hearing his name, Rhys stared at his brother, locking in on Kelly’s words.

“He just cried and cried and didn’t sleep,” Kelly continued. 

Rhys’ stare lingered on Kelly, considering his words with, seemingly, great care.  After a few beats he slowly turned toward me with sadness etched on his cherubic, pizza face, his full lower lip pouting. With his glasses removed - discarded who knows when, who knows where - and his long blond bangs covering the upper orbit of his eyes, he reminded me a of a sheep dog puppy who just learned his flock had been sold for mutton. In a voice a just  a notch above a whisper, Rhys frankly explained his naptime crisis, “I wanted my mommy.”

Trying to comfort him with a joke, I said, “Oh, I’m sorry Rhysie Roo.  Mommy was working at the coal mine today.”

My logical Kelly flashed a quizzical look at me and asked flatly, “Where is the coal mine?”

“Oh, I’m just kidding buddy.  Mommy was working at an office today.  In an office building downtown.”

“Oooh”, said Kelly.  “Mommy is going to take me to her office sometime,” he said grinning so widely he was almost laughing. 

Rhys, 2, as is his custom, immediately did an emotional 180, transforming from sad puppy into his familiar role as the pissed off parrot, “No! Mommy is taking me to her office, too!!!”

To cut acrid, simmering sibling rivalry, I changed the subject and launched into my jester act by spewing out a few nonsensical rhyming words, my standard parenting playbook material.  “Hey, Kelly, listen! Elephant, smell-a-pant.” 

Giggling, Kelly took the bait and chimed back with a rhyming pair of his own, “Elephant, jellypants.” 

Rhys, trying to play along, gave it a shot, “Elephant-aaaaaaah. Pudding!” Kelly, so amused by Rhys’ poetic whiff, cackled for twenty seconds and then peed his pants.  I told him it was ok and sent him up to change while Rhys, Beckett and I continued with our dinner hour comedy shtick.

WARNING: If you choose to continue reading, the story is poop related, again.


Kelly had been up in his room for several minutes, changing I presumed (Kelly is now able to dress himself, save the finishing touches like pant-buttoning and zipping and minor details like successfully identifying the front of any given garment - think zipper butt) when I heard him start shrieking.  I dashed up the stairs to investigate.  I found Kelly in a panic, sobbing and repeating, “I have poop, in my pants.  I have poop, in my pants.“ 

“It’s ok buddy.  Let’s just get you cleaned up.  The wipes are right here and we have a drawer full of underwear and hats right here,” I said smiling as I stretched a pair of his tiny Thomas the Train (clean) undies over my head.   Kelly stopped crying, smiled and informed me, “That’s not a hat, silly turkey! That’s underpants!”

I gestured with the package of wipes for him to come over to me for a cleaning.  I gingerly pulled down the back of his pants and underwear, inspecting the damage and trying to gage the size of the ordinance I was dealing with before fully revealing the entire shebang. Thankfully, it was a single, ping-pong ball-size nugget, not one of his “man-poopies” that he famously unleashes on the world, every so often.  Hmmm, but how did toilet paper find it’s way in here? “Kelly why is there toilet paper in your underwear, buddy?”

“There’s pop in the toilet, too,” claimed Kelly with a triumphantly grin. 

“Really? You pooped in the potty?” I replied skeptically.  Kelly has never pooped in the potty, always waiting for a nap or nighttime pull up diaper to do his dirty work, and is a documented master “poop liar. (see the post "Vomit Reigns Supreme!, Good Morning Extreme Diarrhea”)

He smiled and took my hand and pulled me toward his bathroom. “See! Poop!” And, sure enough, to my utter surprise and infinite relief, a gorgeous three-inch long log of excrement lay at the bottom of the bowl.  A fresh shmear of crap, vertical in orientation, decorated the back inside rim of his potty seat, confirming that, in fact, Kelly, now four months north of four years-old, had just deposited a turd in the toilet for the first time in his life.

Rejoice, rejoice to the Porcelain Gods for terminating our torment and blessing our family with the righteous gift of properly placed fecal matter!  I pray, may Kelly’s holy shits and blessed piss, from this momentous day forward, be received solely by the sea!  Yo, hear our prayer!

Click here for more recent photos of the the crew!

The Answer is Gum

How do you break up a torrid, steamy affair between a highly sensitive 4-year old and his beloved reeking diaps? The answer to this icky situation is gum.

The old M&M trick worked well enough to get him to initially saddle up, sit, and squirt a few times when we thought he might pee.  But holy shit and blessed piss, our big boy Kelly still doesn’t mind, even prefers, crapping and peeing in his pants to making doo and wee in the can.  He’ll play away all day in soiled pants or a diap hanging heavy, saturated with pee – the old ten pounder, I call it.   He doesn't care or seem to mind one bit.

What do we do now parenting book pundits?  I can’t seem to find your informative, oh-so-easy, five-point plan for solving this challenge.  Yes, the chapter on how to crush a boy meets diaper love affair has not been written.  The parenting books say, potty training is tough; it will take patience, dear parent, but don’t fret, they’ll “get it” in a few weeks, a few months at most - just use a sticker chart, and loads of positive encouragement, but do not make too big of a deal about his successes.  Too much praise will cause pressure and may cork him up tight.

We tried every trick in their books.  Bribery with toys and candy: nope.  We attempted the old school, cold-turkey route saying, “Ok, Kelly, you’re four and such a big boy. No more diapers – just do it, kid.”  We marched him down stairs in his big boy undies and he promptly wet his pants and rolled logs of hot poo down his pant leg and on to the hardwood.  “Sorry, I didn’t make it. But that’s ok,” Kelly would say with a rye smile.

Yes, the answer is gum.  Here’s how our reward system works: if he produces urine in the toilet in the morning, after his morning juicing, he receives a half-stick of Extra brand sugarless bubble gum.  If he stays dry he can continue chewing and chomping all-day long.  I don’t care.  It’s the classic win-win in my book.  If he pees in his pants or pull-ups, he is required to surrender the gum.  He hates spitting out his gum, so he takes the time to sit and squirt.  He can then earn another piece by peeing in the toilet, not in his undies.

The system is not fool proof but the gum seems to act as a both an incentive and provides a constant reminder that he needs to stay dry by visiting the potty.  By using the gum plan Kelly has finally made a huge leap in the last week staying, mostly, dry at home.  Now we just need to figure out how to coax him into dropping a duce on the throne, rather than waiting for naptime to do his business in his pull-up.  Oh, and he won’t pee in a toilet outside our house: not at school, not at a friend’s house, the museum, and certainly not at a Conoco station with an anonymous fellow traveler making ghastly spurting sounds and spewing gnarly smells from the adjacent stall.

This horrific gas station bathroom scenario confronted Kelly on our New Years visit to our friends’ who live in the cozy mountain town of Eagle.  Anticipating a pit stop along the way, I packed Kelly’s little potty seat in the boot.  As I slapped it down on the toilet in the cramped, grimy stall, grunts and squirting sounds erupted from the neighboring head. Kelly stood frozen, assessing the situation for a moment, eyes darting between the other commode and what he must have feared to be his tiny torture camber.  Sensing his unmistakable distress, I calmly said, “Hop on Kelly.”

Kelly replied in the negative by jogging in place while squealing, “No, no, no, noooo.”

We retreated to the minivan without doing our business and pressed on.  The gas station situation must have scared the piss out of Kelly because he was still dry when we arrived in Eagle, another hour drive down the highway.  Way to go Kelly!  Our boy is making progress.