It’s glamorous being a mom, regardless as to whether you’re a stay-at-home mom or one who is working outside the home. Things change a lot. For example, before I became a mom I would have NEVER considered walking out of my house without make up on and my hair styled. These days? I really don’t care, or perhaps I’m just too tired, or maybe just maybe my child has beaten me down.

I know you all love hearing about my adventures in potty training Davey. It’s been an on and off affair, but I’ve stuck with it for THREE DAYS this time. I’m determined. I’m going to get this down and Davey will be potty trained. I’ve picked up on his little cues. For example, he likes to hide and squat when he needs to poop. And when he needs to pee? Well, he starts holding his little “man part” as if he’s trying to pinch it off. I’ve got this! I know when he needs to potty and when he’s actually pottying.

I’ve bought stickers as rewards, given him super awesome underwear (Cars themed, his favorite), and I’ve even created a song to help him go potty. Thankfully for all of you, you don’t have to listen to my caterwauling as I sing to Davey. It remains to be seen if he really enjoys my singing or if he just tries to potty in order to get me to shut up. I don’t care which one it is, as long as he potties.

Lately, he’s hit a defiant state with me and not just on the potty training issue, but with everything. Naturally, it makes the potty training a lot more difficult, but I gotta tell you…Wanna know where I find solace and the encouragement for patience (a virtue I never thought I would learn)? It’s not on the other mommy blogs or from other moms who’ve been in my shoes. It’s from the Bible. So, every morning I say a little prayer for strength, patience and sanity and I begin my trek down Potty Training Avenue.

This morning, I read my Bible and said my prayer. The Lord doesn’t always answer in the ways we hope, but He does answer. Thankfully for me, He answered because after this morning’s fiasco I was about to pull the “Old Amy” response of saying a word or two that wasn’t exactly appropriate for my son to hear.

Davey is sitting at the kitchen table, alongside me, eating his breakfast and listening to today’s Bible lesson (he loves to be read to). After breakfast, I get him down from the chair only to immediately notice the all too knowing sign of a poop. As a side note, why does a child’s poop smell worse than an adult’s? So, I ask, “Davey, did you poop your pants?” I get, “Oh no, Mama.” I ask, “Davey are you telling mommy the truth or are you fibbing?” He replies, “I fib.”

I take him to the bathroom because my intent is to take his poopy underwear and dump the poop into the potty and explain (AGAIN) that this is where poop belongs. What I wasn’t exactly expecting was the fact that it wasn’t just your typical poop. It had eased up his back and saturated his underwear and pants. Sigh! I said a quick prayer. This is the reason I use disposable diapers instead of cloth. I have absolutely NO DESIRE to scrub poop. I just want to trash/flush it and be done!

Gently I take off his shirt, careful to make sure that no poop gets in his hair, a feat which I found to be successful. Next, I took a little toilet paper and wiped off his back before beginning to navigate his pants and underwear. I don’t know where I went wrong. Perhaps it was underestimating the movements of my child because as I started sliding down his pants and then his underwear, Davey decides he wants to immediately step out of the poop infested arena. So, he jerks up his left foot, gets his heel caught in the poop of the underwear, and then shoves down his foot thereby squishing poop everywhere. I try to steady him and bite my tongue, saying yet again another prayer to God, as this thought starts swirling through my head: I gave up a paying job for this crap (literally and figuratively)? At least when I was in the corporate world and people treated me like poop, or even thought about rubbing my face in it (which I’m sure quite a few of my customers desired), I was paid. I don’t get paid squat for this.

So, I stood Davey back up as he reached down to wipe the poop from his foot. “Davey, no!” I screamed, but too late. He then wiped the poop on his leg, started crying and with his hand smothered in poop says, “Mama, clean pleeeeaaassseee,” all the while wrapping his arms around my neck and then stroking my hair with said poop hand. Not only is my child now covered in poop, but it’s also in my hair. Again, Sigh! And thank you, Lord, for allowing me to take it in stride.

I’m still determined on this potty training thing. If anything it’s becoming a battle of the wills and I always win. Trust me, I will kill myself, but I always win. I will succeed. In the meantime, I am forced to endure a song entitled, “Mommy has poopy hair and Dixie has a pee pee mouth”. It was adorable the first thousand times I heard it today. Now? I’m ready to gauge out my eardrums. And as for the really cool Cars underwear? It was thrown in the trash. Davey has 40 pairs, being short one doesn’t bother me especially if I don’t have to clean the poop.

That’s all for today in Potty Training Land. Stay tuned for more shenanigans to come…COUNT ON ‘EM.