There's Only Room for Two on the Bus

Since the beginning of time, we have had poop problems in our house. Tucker, for instance, learned how to hold poop really well by the age of 3 months. This continued until 3 years old when we had no choice but to give him prescription strength laxative that forced him to go. It took me multiple hours per day over 1.5 years to establish a pattern with him, including re-teaching him that when we get the feeling, we need to go to the potty and poop. We spent many, many days at the doctors, enemas every so often and stressful days trying to get him to poop. He would hold it about 1 week long.... Tucker is the perfect regular guy now when it comes to poop. And yes, I do pat myself on the back for this.

Over the last month or so, we've noticed that Ryan, who is 4, has started trying to hold it in a way that was similar to Tucker. Sure he's had a few accidents, but he's gotten pretty good at holding it. We swore to each other that we were not going to go through what we did with Tucker again. That's why around a year ago, I established a nightly pattern with Ryan too. As with Tucker, they can hold poop all they want during the day, but when it's time for bed, it's time to poop. Like I said, Tucker is regular and Ryan is fairly regular too. Lately though, Ryan continues to say, "I don't want to go Poo-Poo," even though we can clearly see that he has to.

This past Saturday night, after a day long company party, I could tell that not only was Ryan tired, he had to go poop. I knew he was holding it all day, so when we got home it was straight to the bathroom to go poop. Of course he started in with the whining about how he didn't want to go poo-poo. I wasn't buying it so I encouraged him by giving him relaxing talk about what happened during the day and getting him to think of other things besides poop. You might call me the Poop Whisperer. Anyway, after 30 minutes of "Relaxation," he starts to go poop. The relief on his face was evident. Because I knew he was working hard to hold it, I thought there was more poop to be had. I then encouraged him to go more. It didn't work so I pulled out the trick that the Poop Doctor had told us to use with Tucker. It was the Poop Party trick.

So, I told Ryan that his poo-poo wants to go to the Poop Party with all of their friends, so won't he just let them go so they can have a good time like we did that day. Ryan got a smile on his face, looked down in the toilet and said, "There's two of them and there's only room for two on the bus." I lost it. I hadn't laughed so hard in a long time. Needless to say, he ended his stay on the potty and it was time for bed.

Even now as I write this, I can't help but chuckle.