Poop

Got your attention didn't I?

No, not my poop: Norah's poop.

In the past few weeks, she's gone from warily regarding the toilet as a suspect place to poop to being an enthusiastic toilet-pooper.  So much so, that she wants to poop at any opportunity she can seize.  Maybe our incentives have been too grandiose, I don't know, but either way, she now regards pooping in the potty as the pinnacle of her daily achievements (really, don't we all?), so we've essentially created a monster here: She wants to sit on the pot and poop even when she doesn't have to poop.

Yesterday, following her dad's shining example, she requested that she have access to the iPad for potty-tainment.  My mistake was allowing her to sit there too long (in my defence, it's a fine line between her truly having to poop and her using poop as an excuse to play on the iPad, or post-pone bedtime, or naptime, or dinner...), and when she got up, her legs had fallen asleep.

There was a lot of crying over that. 

Parenting FAIL.

And, the poop-in-the-potty obsession has even extended to her babies, stuffed animals, princesses, etc.  Can they poop in the potty?  Yes?  Then that's what they should be doing!  Yesterday afternoon, I witnessed the most hilarious play-scenario unfold:

Big Baby (Norah's oldest, ugliest looking baby) was getting her diaper changed by Norah, and she'd pooped.  Norah sternly told her: "Big Baby, next time you have to poop, you have to tell me so you can go on the potty!"  A few seconds later, "What?  You have to poop some more, Big Baby?  Let's go to the potty!"

Big Baby was rushed into the bathroom to sit on the training toilet, where she had complete poop success!

I walk in, and Norah has Big Baby bent over in Down Dog to wipe Big Baby's butt (this is how teachers at school instruct the kids to "assume the position" and, honestly, I hadn't thought of it before, but once Norah starting doing it at home, I realized how handy it is for wiping somebody else's ass!).  Caleb had toddled in behind me (that dude is walking, yo!), and Norah took the chance to properly instruct Caleb about poop in the potty.

"See, Caleb, Big Baby pooped!  You wanna sniff it?  Here, smell!"

"Smells like poop, huh?  It's brown poop!"

Caleb leans in over the fictional brown poop and appreciates this tutorial.

"Don't eat it," Norah advises, "we just sniff poop, we don't eat it."

Right, Caleb, if there's anything from childhood that should remain an important lesson, it's that which your big sister has imparted: Poop is for smelling, not for eating.