Poo-paranoia

Samantha isn't the only one who is thinking about potty training.  The following incident actually happened a couple of months ago, before I saw the signs that she might be ready, and it got me thinking that I might be ready.

 

When Sam was younger, I used to worry about the "poop-out" all the time.  She's been making 3-4 movements per day for as long as I can remember, and before that it was more.  Some of these are just so big and messy that no mere diaper can contain them, especially if you don't change her immediately.  (I've discovered that the diaper size your baby should be wearing is not related to the size of her body, but to the size of her product.  Sam is usually two sizes up from what is recommended for her weight.) I'm sure this happens with all babies, but I've never heard of it happening quite as often as it did with Sam.  It was simply a regular occurrence and I became very anxious about it, constantly checking and worrying.  I think the worst leak happened when Sam had her first real playdate.  I was considering joining the local MOMs club in Lexington and brought Sam to a stranger's house to hang out with some other kids.  Before I knew it, she was scooting around on her bottom (her alternative to crawling) leaving a brown trail all over the woman's nice hardwood floors.  I never did officially join that group.

 

But my poo-paranoia has subsided recently, as Sam seems to have inherited from me the curse of being a nervous pooer.  I think it's a girl thing.  When we're out of the house, she just saves them up until we get home.  It actually makes life more convenient for me right now.  I hardly ever even sniff her bum in public anymore, and I almost never have to change a diaper anywhere but at home.  Almost never.

 

In Lexington I'd been taking her to the YMCA with me, where she stayed in child care while I took my yoga class.  She had separation anxiety for a while, and they'd have to pull me out of class to come get her.  It was embarrassing, and missing Savasana at the end of a yoga class kind of ruins the whole thing.  I kept going, though, and she eventually got over it.  In fact, she got so comfortable there that she started pooing.  So then they started calling me out to change her diaper - arrrrg! 

 

One night, they called me out for yet another diaper change.  I went in and saw the big brown stain on her butt...sigh.  I got my diaper bag from my locker, came back, and started peeling off her clothes.  I took a deep breath, unVelcro'd the Velcro and...nothing in the diaper - what???  I looked at her pants again.  It looked like poo.  I sniffed it - it smelled like graham cracker.  She'd sat on a cracker.  They had pulled me out of yoga for crumb-bum, goddammit!  Talk about poo-paranoia.

 

When we start potty training I know it will get worse before it gets better, but I'm ready.  By my calculations, I've changed at least 3000 diapers already.  And now you know why "poo" is the most common word in my vocabulary.