The scoop

Alternative title to this post: 'Things you never dreamed you'd do before you became a parent'. Home alone, giving little one her bath one night. It's a scene of quiet maternal bliss. Toddler is splashing playfully and - stop the press - even attempting to wash various bits of herself. Actually, she's mainly washing her favourite bit of herself: her doo-dah (sorry, this is the best name we could come up with, better than the Italian 'potato'. My daughter's not having a spud down there). I'm perched on the bidet thinking that in approx. 30 mins time Isabel, Upsy Daisy, Dolly, Shaun the Sheep, The Very Hungry Caterpillar etc etc will all be tucked up in bed and I'll be laying on the sofa scoffing my face with a big plate of pasta and a Kit Kat (pregnancy diet). Isabel leans forward in the water to reach one of her thirty-five thousand squirty toys and then freezes with a faraway look in her eyes. Slight reddening of the cheeks. Little grunt. Tiny tear in corner of one eye. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Sob (me, not her..). What do you do when there's a great long poo suddenly floating amidst the plastic ducks and, oh my God, you quickly realise that it's disintegrating fast??

Before I go on, I have to mention that I've been reading about potty training and apparently, one important factor is to make sure that kids don't develop a phobia of their poo. Apparently, we shouldn't be saying things like 'Oh Jesus, what a stinker, have you been eating your father's socks? I'm going to be sick' as we change the nappy wearing a gas mask and surgical gloves. Rather, we should apparently be praising the child for their magnificent productions and telling them how glorious their poop is. We should also, apparently, be showing our child their poo. It's not something to be ashamed of, it's marvellous stuff. Apparently.

With this in mind, I grabbed the first thing to hand, a plastic tub with a little face painted on and it holes in the bottom, and deftly fished the poo out of the water. I showed Isabel her rather impressive turd (I'm her mother, I'm secretly proud of EVERYTHING she does), gagged a couple of times as the water drained out of the tub and then deposited it in the loo with a little sing-song comment about how that's where poos go, not in the bath, sweetheart! Eugh. Showered off said toddler, let poopy water go and got out of that bathroom quicker than you can say 'pass the disinfectant'.

After getting Isabel and the gang to sleep, and before I could enjoy my pasta/Kit Kat combo down on Albert Square, I had to return to the scene of the crime, get the rubber gloves out and get scrubbing. Talk about how to lose your appetite. Motherhood truly rocks.

ps: I triple disinfected the poopascoopa tub but have since thrown it away.
pps: apparently, I read too many parenting books