Synchronized Shitting

One day you are cute, fun, and getting bit in a fun cutesy way by feeding llamas (or was it an emu…?) while enjoying lavish vacation in South Africa. Another day you are being called to the bathroom by not one, but 2 of the tiniest dictators you could encounter to wipe some asses.

You see, the thing about parenting that no one tells you, is that you will be wiping assess a lot more than one would think. It doesn’t stop after the diapers have gone away, there is still many years of cleaning poopy butts to come. Turns out that Big Daddy movie was even more hilarious than I realized before having kids (and I do love that movie) because I completely understand the line now when the kid is screaming, “I wipe my own ass!” Although wiping your own ass IS a bonus, generally with kids it’s a bit of a shit show (see what I did there?)

My kids are currently 4 and 2.75 years old. One is fully potty trained, and the other, well is half there somedays and completely not there, on others. Poop always comes upon my children like they are interviewing with their best bad acting skills or as if they just ate cheese while being lactose intolerant. It’s such a big surprise to them and their reaction mimics something of a lively cartoon character. First, my 4-year-old exclaims loudly, “I have to go potty!!!” He jumps off the table and runs to the bathroom. My 2-year-old, being the younger brother, oftentimes just copycats everything and immediately follows with, “I have to go potty!” One after the other they race down the hallway.

Now I am completely unsure if they hold it until they cannot hold it anymore, or if when one announces the bathroom the other one realizes that they also have to go, or since they eat the same foods and at the same time, they have the same bathroom schedule, or they imitate teenage girls who have their menstrual cycle at the same time; but my kids tend to both have to go potty at the same exact time. And on this day that particular potty was a number two. I stay chatting for a minute on the phone because I am facetiming at the table and then the hollers for “Moahm, come help!” start. I walk into the bathroom with one on the big potty and one on the little potty.

While attempting to wipe my 4 olds butt while I am still on facetime, he starts to make wiping impossible by moving his butt and saying, “shake your booty, shake your booty”, over and over again. To this day, I wonder which kid at school taught him this because of all the bad things they have picked up from us, this is not one. I am wiping double butts and now have a booty shaker on hand. I know I should not, but I burst into laughter and excuse myself off the phone to continue my job at hand. Most of parenting is moments like this, when you know you shouldn’t do the thing, but you just cannot help it. Between getting bit by llamas, or the shaking booty show at home, the latter is the way more hilarious of the two. I guess if you are going to have a career of cleaning butt, it might as well be funny. I may not be as cute anymore, but one thing is for sure, I am still having fun in my synchronized shitting era.