Poop Chronicles, Part 2
2007 marked the arrival of two major milestones in the Davis household: potty training Nathaniel and shopping for brand new (not hand-me-down) furniture for our den. For the typical family, the two milestones would not be in anyway related. For the Davis family, however, they somehow managed to intersect.
For those of you who have not had the joy of potty training and/or do not remember your own potty training experience, here’s a known fact: children reach an age when they become embarrassed about pooping, so they hide to poop. When we were potty training Nathaniel, he would mysteriously disappear, only to suddenly reappear with a sheepish grin and a lumpy pair of underwear. We started to pick up on this, and following him one day I realized that he was consistently hiding behind our coffee table to go potty.
One Saturday we decided to go shopping for furniture. This was a major milestone for us, since we would be purchasing our first pieces of brand new furniture and passing on our hand-me-down furniture to someone else. It was an exciting time, but made a little complicated by the fact that Nathaniel was potty training–which meant we were on a short time leash. When Nathaniel said he had to “go”, that meant we had about 10 seconds to find some hole, bush, cup, or toilet for him to christen.
At the furniture store, Nate and I stopped to admire a couch. Nathaniel said he had to go potty, so Nate whisked him away to the nearest bathroom in Superman fashion. Sadly he was too late, so Nathaniel came out of the potty wearing one less pair of underpants. That’s right. Commando. So as Nate and I were reviewing our options (1. Call it a day and head home, 2. Make a run to Target, 3. Risk it and stay a while longer), we noticed Nathaniel was missing from our side. Looking around, I suddenly viewed our surroundings through the eyes of my 2 year old—-COFFEE TABLES GALORE. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!
The frantic search began for my son…and sure enough, we found him squatting behind a local coffee table, red faced and sheepish. Nate whisked him away to the bathroom, but yet again our efforts were too late. Nathaniel insisted that he had already pottied. So Nate and I abandoned all Southern manners and gentile upbringing and hit the ground on all fours, searching for the missing poop. After searching under every conceivable coffee table, we came to the conclusion that the PMIA (Poop Missing In Action) had gone AWOL and must have gone underneath a couch.
At a loss as to what would be the good and moral thing to do, we dusted ourselves off, packed up our things and the guilty party, and called it a day.
The moral of the story is: if your child has a weakness for coffee tables DON’T take him furniture shopping!
