"Poop"

I don’t know how it is in most homes, but in the Megow house “poop” is a multi-faceted conversation topic. Every family has a story about someone in their family that finger painted with poop or tried to eat it before they knew better. It’s just a phase of life man, embrace it.  I try to limit the amount of “poop talk” in the house. It’s just kind of gross and gets old after a while, but I can tell you kids this age love telling you a good poop joke. I try to teach my kids to strive higher in their humor, so I tell them, don’t go for the easy laugh. Expand your horizons and try to work in some toilet paper jokes in there from time to time. Speaking of toilet paper, I saw this the other day and thought it was spot on.

The picture above is pretty accurate. I can’t tell you the number of times, I have had to yell combined noise of “Daniel’s Tiger Neighborhood”, Neela and Stevie playing animal hospital, and Olive screaming about God knows what, to try to get someone to bring me toilet paper. It was awesome; however now, every time I ask Stevie (the self-elected leader of the children) will yell through the bathroom door, “Dad, I know boys only need toilet paper for poop. We are not opening this door until the stink goes away.” So I just sit and wait, wishing Titus didn’t use the entire bottle of Vanilla Glade Air Freshener as cologne that morning before school.

I do think most kids seem to find poop hilarious. No matter how many lectures you can give them about how it’s gross and smelly, kids just find the thought of poop funny. I can’t blame them. Even the word is kind of fun to say. Try it, when’s the last time you were alone and just said the word poop to yourself. Ever?  I  can pretty much guarantee you will smile. So everyone, let’s all say it out loud together… “Poop”. Fun wasn’t it? If you are too embarrassed to participate, check out this fun video making the rounds in the Megow house.

"Poop"

There’s a new trend going around in the Megow house. Neela seems to be championing it. She is constantly asking to have corn (either kernel or on the cob). She always enjoyed “nature food”, so I just thought she was expanding her horizons, but really I think she views eating corn because it’s fun two times. She loves the way it tastes, but everyone knows what happens in the restroom after eating kernel corn. I have literally walked into the bathroom 3 times and found all four children leaning over the potty with Neela pointing out the yellow kernels in her stool floating in the water. Three thoughts on that: 1) That is just gross 2) My kids are freaking hysterical 3) Stevie, I love how you can visually examine your sister’s feces for two minutes but can’t crack a door to throw in a roll of toilet paper.

Another thing I have learned with kids is that skid marks are just a part of life. At night, I’m doing laundry thinking to myself, “Look at all these cute little kid clothes. What a cute little dress for Olive or what a fun spiderman shirt for Titus.” When I get to the underwear, some days I’m more shocked at the number of little underwears without a light brown stain. Not trying to sound wasteful, but after the same pair gets marked enough I just trash it. Cotton can only take so much bleach ;) Hahaha

Neela loved T.P. as a baby :)

My kids are starting to get older, so even though I hear poop jokes at least twelve times a day, the physical presence of poop outside of the toilet is starting to decrease, which I love. However, I’m not too bothered by poop. (Which is maybe why I can write this much about poop and not think it’s weird… Wait is it weird. Yeah, it is. Sorry. Megows are weird.) I think one of the main reasons I don’t get grossed out is that we did cloth diapers for a long time. In my head I thought, it’s not going to be that gross. I will just wash them regularly and dump out any solids in the toilet. Awwww, past Seth. That’s cute how you think that.  I eventually became aware of the risks involved with cloth diapers pretty quickly. I was pretty intense about it too. They were kind of expensive so we wanted to get our money’s worth. Did your kids ever have one of those amazing number 2 explosions where it shot out the back of their diaper up into the neck of their shirt while it slowly dripped back down their back onto the outside of the diaper? I’m sure you did. Normally, you would locate a nuclear reactor to properly dispose of that horrid formerly white Huggies diaper. However, with a cloth diaper, you gotta scrub that junk. This isn’t a little baby turd either. This is like someone threw a little cute orange piece of cotton into Mount Vesuvius filled with hot, liquid smelly brown chunks. We did cloth diapers for years, so yeah, poop doesn’t phase me.  

Yep. Pretty Accurate.

But honestly, parents, how pumped to you get to actually take a deuce in private? Readers, if you don’t have kids yet, you have no idea how sweet it is to be able to poop when you want to. I’m not too shy or embarrassed about going in a public restroom, but I will say that with kids I feel like I’m constantly having to hold it. Parents am I the only one who doesn’t have time to use the restroom? I mean sometimes I feel like my eyes are getting browner I have to hold it so long at times. So now if I’m anywhere without the kids (typically at work… sorry VSU), I have no problems enjoying the silence and taking care of business.  Honestly, I have no inhibitions going in public anymore. I might make people uncomfortable. The unspoken rules of the men’s restroom are: “Eyes forward and keep it quiet and quick”. Sometimes, I will break “quiet” portion of the unspoken rule. Now I’m not a bathroom stall cell phone talker, but I do just try to enjoy the quiet experience and usually end up singing or whistling. I know guys at the urinal think I’m crazy, but hey, hater’s gonna hate. I just get too excited to not have to scream from the toilet to stop fighting or trying to figure out what the huge BANG noise that just came from the kitchen, that I can’t help but whistle the Andy Griffith theme song.

-Seth