Kids and Poo (As In Poop, Not The Bear)

Kids and Poo (As In Poop, Not The Bear)

Lots of things in my life have changed since having had children. Adjustments have been made.

For example, I bought my first pack of baby wipes in July 2009. I was 27. How on earth did I survive 27 years without baby wipes!?! Aside from being useful to clean butts, sticky fingers and disinfecting children in general, I sort of now use baby wipes for everything. AND. I. MEAN. EVERYTHING. ---- My kitchen hob looks shiny you say? Huggies Natural! My bathroom floor tiles are clean. Huggies Natural! It was nearing the end of the day and my underarms were a bit stinky before the school run. Oh yes. Huggies Natural. I’m just saying.

I sleep less, or not at all. Sometimes, I get to sleep in until 8:00 A.M. if I promise my husband he can do the same the following morning. And if the baby needs a feed in the early A.M. and I am dead asleep or sick, or just don’t have the energy to get out of bed, my husband, ever the gentleman, kindly lifts my shirt and latches the baby to my boob without waking me. Now that’s love. That’s teamwork.

What else has changed? My waistline (wider). My boobs (lower & fabulously flabby) and more of a tool than a sexual object. I’m OK with all of this.

I can’t remember the last time I had a bath, or shower or (let’s be honest here) used the toilet without having an audience watching me. Or if I manage to get in there on my own, all three are waiting for me right against the door. “Can we come in?” “Are you done yet?” No and No. Then, as soon as I open the door they ALL tumble in wondering, what ‘I was doing?”

But what I hadn’t expected, at all really, was the how much ‘number two’ there would be in my life. And by ‘number two’, I mean ‘poop’, as in poo, feces, excrement, caca (Spanish - ooh amn’t I clever).

It starts when they are just newborns, and well, for me hasn’t ended. My eldest will be turning 6 shortly. At first, if you breastfeed, they have the mustard seed poo that kind of, is basically designed to seep right through the legs of diapers. It’s like magic. It just works its way right through. Nothing can stop a healthy smattering of mustard seed poop. Good luck getting those stains out of clothes. And if you are really very lucky, you might be holding or nursing them when the ‘big ones’ happen and this can mean only one thing. Your clothes are done. Done.

Parents of formula fed babies don’t get off easy either. Formula babies tend to get more constipated. And when the constipation goes, it is explosive and it STINKS. And there’s a lot of it. And you might even accidentally stick your finger in it while changing the baby and think “what now?” Believe me, trying to hold a baby’s legs out of its own poo while trying to get a wipe from the pack with your free hand, that just so happens to have poo on it deserves an Olympic medal.

Then they start to eat food that they can’t digest. You will, in part because of concern and in part because of curiosity, start to inspect the undigested food in their poop. You will probably Google it too. Such is life. Chances are you will know your child’s poo so well you could identify it in a line-up.

As a new parent, you will wipe fresh poop off of butts for 2 years. Then, once they are toilet training or toilet trained, you will get to wipe fresh poop off of butts for another two years, and hands and the floor, because, guess what, little kids can’t really wipe their butts so you have to help them.

Once they are 4-6, and for the most part, properly toilet trained, they still can’t wipe their butts. This is made worse by the fact that they are now at school or nursery/day-care, so you now wipe dried poo off of your children or dunk them in the bath religiously. You will also boil wash your children’s clothes because there will be streaks and caked in poo on under-garments. On really bad days, hands up, I confess, I throw them away. Sometimes, I just can’t cope.

Wanna do something really gross? Lick your child’s palms after school. I. DARE. YOU.

Then there is the actual toilet poo. The poo that sticks on the side of a once white toilet bowl. That stuff is hard to get rid of and kids don’t think to use the toilet brush. And if they do, you don’t want them using a toilet brush. Believe me. I’ve tried and tested that one. Kids don’t always properly expel the contents of their bowels. They just don't have the patience, opting for multiple poo trips in a day. Most of which will likely require the helping hand of a toilet brush and you.

Then there is the fact that kids love poo talk. By love, I mean LOVE. My 4 year-old made a sword and shield at nursery this week.  On the shield she painted a witch with red pigtails and her trusted cat standing by her side. In the painting, there are also, two brown colored rocks. Well, I thought they were rocks. They aren’t. They are, you guessed it -- poo! Technically it is ‘cat poo’ that the witch has stepped in. And boy, was she ever-so pleased when she told me what she had painted (see picture above).

I have kids. I deal with a lot of poo everyday. A lot.