POPPING IN FOR A POOP

Whenever my kids get backed up, there is one surefire way to guarantee that they will poop: going out for a coffee. I don’t know what it is about a glass of chocolate milk that makes my kids bowels start to rumble or why it only works in cafes, but it works every time. Let me give you my latest example.

Every Saturday Alex and I walk to the center of town to shop at the farmer’s market. We tie the kids down into the double stroller with duct tape and promises to take them out for a chocomel (Dutch chocolate milk drink) in exchange for keeping the tears down to a dull roar. We always go to the same cafe (Kaldi), a small place where the Saturday crowd is mostly regulars. I am pretty sure that their continued patronage of the establishment despite our own visits is the only reason the owner lets us keep coming.

The upside to seeing the same people each time is that you get less embarrassed by your kids bodily functions. For example, the first few times your little princesses toddle down the center aisle yelling, “I gotta go poo poo,” you hang your head in shame. The forty-seventh time your kids do this you follow right along yelling, “Me too!” without a care in the world. (My husband still pretends he doesn’t know us, which is hard to do when you are holding a set of pink coats in your lap.)

This week we had a lot of time to kill so we decided to mix things up a bit. We rolled past Kaldi and headed over to my favorite “I’m out of the house without the kids” cafe. I won’t mention the name here because I’d like to be able to go back again.

We went straight for the couches in the back of the shop which were both farthest away from every other customer and closest to the bathroom. A half of glass of chocomel later, Addy announced that she needed to go potty. She did her business with a minimal amount of fuss and I thought I was in the clear. HAHA! I should know better by now. No sooner had I gotten back over to couch than Giorgie announced that she needed to go potty. Her routine is even easier: drop trou, get within 6 inches of toilet seat and then yell “Done!”. You don’t have to wipe or anything. She is mainly just along for the experience.

I got back to the couches for a second time and Alex decided that it would be a good moment to mention that Giorgie had a poopy diaper. I had mistakenly attributed the smell to the loud farts Addy had been ripping pre-potty trip. Thanks to my obliviousness, Giorgie now had poop smeared all down her legs. We had no wipes and no diaper. I trucked it back into the bathroom and tried to do a clean-up sans wipes.

Have you ever tried to get partially crusted poop off of a squirming two year old’s legs using only damp toilet paper? I eventually gave up and hung the sobbing, squirming, poopy child over the large sink and washed her with icy cold water. Then I had to dry her off using the rest of the toilet paper roll.

I finally made it out and had to hover over her for the next 15 minutes while Alex ran to the grocery store to buy a diaper. I have never been so glad to see a pack of Dora pull-ups in my life.

My only hope after all of this is that maybe, just maybe Giorgie was so traumatized that she’ll think twice before asking to go potty at the cafe again. Yeah right, she’s two, like that is ever gonna happen.