Warning: this column talks poop a lot
Living Large
A monthly column about the strange (at least from the outside looking in) lifestyle of a modern, large family.
Many years ago, I read a Father’s Day column in a magazine. The writer’s main piece of advice to new parents was: “lower your standards”.
The tongue in cheek column went on to describe how, when he was younger, he had never imagined that as an adult he would regularly smell another person’s bum in public.
After I became a parent of a child in nappies, I often found bum-sniffing to be insufficient. Sniffing won’t tell you if it is just a fart or how big a poop it is. This is key information because if it’s a teeny one, she’s probably not done yet — as was always the case with baby Gymnovert. She was a poop saver upper. While she was being breastfed exclusively, she would go for days without pooping. Then suddenly she’d get going and it would be an endless stream of golden poop-filled nappies until she was finally done.
For the uninitiated, the poop of exclusively breastfed babies has a gold colour and is nutrient dense. I’ve come across online gardening columns that advise using it as flower fertiliser.
Besides saving it up, Gymnovert would also choose the worst times to make her extra large deposit, like on the rare occasion when we visited friends. Going out with a newborn is hard enough as it is and then she still pulled stunts like that.
I have a friend who has a daughter who is almost the exact age as Gymnovert, and her daughter, curiously, had the same tendency. She lives in Australia and was visiting family in Cape Town when her few-months-old daughter didn’t go for days before they left. She then dropped her large, never-ending golden bomb mid-flight.
My friend said she was expecting it. Because that’s what happens when you become a parent, you begin to get a sixth sense about shit that’s coming your way.
What you need to understand with these saved up poops is that they just don’t end. They burst out of nappies, trash whole packets of wetwipes and fill nappy after nappy after nappy until the chunky golden mush finally lets up.
Anyway, back to my original tangent. When my kids were babies, I often found myself partially exposing the tops of their butts in public as I took a peak. Luckily, young children don’t care. They are as unabashed about their own privacy as they are about everyone else’s.
Wheaty, once she started toddling, considered it a considerable achievement to look for me while I was on the toilet — every single time. She would push open the door and beam at me with pride — every time I pooped. Sometimes she’d even give herself a round of applause. I suspect she thought this was an advanced version of where-she, where-she.
I can hear some of you thinking, “Why don’t you just lock the door?”
Well, it’s simple really. I had to ask myself, whenever I went to the toilet: “Do I feel like giving the neighbours another reason to wonder if they should be calling the police about the screaming they hear coming from our house or would I allow a toddler to beam at me with pleasure after she looks for me and finds me pooping … again?”
Put another way, what do I feel like hearing while pooping; the loud, despondent wail of a toddler briefly separated from me by a few centimetres of wood or the ecstatic laughter of a toddler who thinks she’s achieved something amazing by pushing open an already partially opened door and finding me where she knew I was? Well, it’s a no-brainer really.
Keeping the door unlocked becomes a rule of thumb after a while. Parents find themselves doing all sorts of things from the throne; giving instructions, helping with homework, scolding, negotiating peace, entertaining toddlers. That’s why it’s called a throne, because parents hold court from there. There’s no social media scrolling or email checking from the throne for us. No sirree.
Speaking of phones, Suzuki cracked up laughing at an old video she found of mine that I had forgotten about. It was a conversation between Rocky and I. Rocky was negotiating having a tea party so that she could practice table manners. Rocky is always trying to negotiate stuff. The funny bit was not the conversation but that Wheaty, who is under two at the time, comes dancing and singing along a few moments later. She notices Rocky lying on the floor and promptly kicks her barefoot in her face.
Feeling scandalised? You must be an only child. This is pretty standard sibling behaviour. “Oh, look, there’s my older sister lying on the floor having a nice conversation with my mom while she poops. I think I’ll just kick her in the face.”
Siblings the world over would read this and nod in understanding.
Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that I happened to film this whole conversation from my vantage point of the toilet — as is evidenced by my naked knees in the shot. So you see, I haven’t really diverged from the point at all. As a parent you’ll have to lower your standards about what you expect to be doing to entertain yourself while you poop.
Poop is something that’s on parents' minds a lot. One thing you’ll never fully understand until you are a parent is how happy poop can make you.
Your child’s first gold poop after hours and hours of black newborn meconium – delight! The child’s first poop after several agonising days of constipation – joy! The child’s first independent poop in a potty – ecstasy! Getting your child to understand that it’s not okay to poop their pants in public – heaven!
Young children, as you may have guessed, don’t find pooping embarrassing at all but it is not only pooping which children find completely unembarrassing. They’re perfectly okay with nudity too. This usually changes after they are about four-years-old – unless you’re Gymnovert.
Gymnovert loved being naked a little too much. She loved climbing too (hence the “Gym” in her moniker – the “novert“ is because she is introverted) and would often combine the two. Once when she was two, I was chatting over the wall to the next door neighbour. The neighbour was distractedly looking over my shoulder and smiling while I chatted away oblivious, until she burst out laughing.
I looked behind me and found myself looking at Gymnovert’s naked butt. She was climbing the loquat tree naked — again. This tree happened to be in full view of anyone. Thankfully, she rarely got beyond the first branch before she was caught, hauled out of the tree and redressed — in every sense of the word.
Babies especially love being naked. My sister works as an au pair and we regularly exchange funny videos of the things the children in our care get up to. For one particular video I was surprised by her response.
In the video, Jay is a lisping emcee at an impromptu concert with her sisters. She introduces the next act and, as she steps away, she reveals a naked Gymnovert behind her. Well, almost naked — she was wearing lit-up Minnie Mouse ears which flashed on and off for the duration or her rendition of the ABC song — delivered with lots of hand-waving and flourish. As the video pans, we see Jay, now wearing oversized sunglasses and swaying along to the song, while Suzuki rhythmically strums a colourful plastic guitar.
My sister’s response to the video: “Wow, Jay has big feet!”
I replied: “There was a flamboyantly naked Gymnovert, flashing in more ways than one, and mini versions of Stevie Wonder and Carlos Santana in that video and all you noticed was Jay’s feet?”
Her response: “I see naked toddlers everyday, all day, but adult-sized feet on a child, that’s rare!”
Get in touch:
Do you have questions or comments?
Email me at lauren.oconnor-may@acm.co.za
Previous columns:
The quirks and conundrums of living with a large family
Figuratively speaking – finding humour in the loss of my physique