Overheard Exhibit R

"Look at my poop Daddy; it's a popsicle,"

While visually accurate, this was perhaps the worst metaphor ever.

Like, Ooops

Saturday afternoon Charlotte found a bag of dried apricots and kept on calling them her vitamins.  They are round, and they do have the same translucent quality of her gummy vitamins.  She walked around with them in her possession the rest of the afternoon and evening. At bedtime she insisted on taking them with her into her crib.  I agreed, as the apricots were closed with a twist tie and she had shown zero interest in eating them.  I thought it was funny that most kids want their teddy bear for bedtime, but Charlotte wants a bag of dried apricots.

Fast-forward to Sunday morning.  I was out running with some friends when Charlotte woke up.  So, fortunately for me, I was not first responder.  Emily walked in when she heard Charlotte blabbering away.  When she opened the door, Charlotte was standing up in her crib, held out an opened baggie, half-full of dried apricots, and said, "Vitamins!"

Emily said, "Did you eat some of those?" and Charlotte matter-of-factly said "yeah."

We have no idea when she ate the apriocots but it must have closer to bedtime than wake up time.  Let's just say that when Emily was done changing Charlotte's diaper and cleaning Charlotte up, an orange hue remained on her bum.

Like I said, glad I wasn't the first responder.

Conversation With Charlotte #561

A couple evenings ago Charlotte was sitting on her potty as she likes to do and she asked me to join her.  Sometimes she likes to chill on her potty with company and sometimes she likes to go solo.  In fact she is really getting into the whole "going potty" thing... if you limit "going potty" to mean walking into the bathroom by yourself, closing the door until it latches, sitting on the potty for thirty seconds, and then crying for a parent to come let you out of the bathroom because you haven't figured out yet how to open the door.

So she has a lot of ostensible steps covered but is really missing those huge, all important, deeper steps of pulling your pants down and actually having some sort of substance evacuate your body.... and then knowing how to operate a basic door. She does enjoy hand washing, though, so at least we have that big step down.

Anyway, as I started out writing, a few nights ago she sat on her potty and asked me to join her.  We look like two people sitting down to tea, as we just sit there on our respective seats looking at one another.  So I sat on the toilet and she, on her potty, started talking to me.  And the opening line was profound and deep.

Charlotte: Daddy sit down.  Daddy go potty.

Me: Correct.

Charlotte: Correct.  [Points to toilet paper roll next to me hanging from the wall].  That a napkin on the potty.

Me: Somewhat correct.

Charlotte: Somewhat correct.

And now I can't help but want to call toilet paper "potty napkins" all the time now.  Fortunately for both me and my conversation parters, toilet paper does not really come up a lot in coversation.

Poopsmith

Tomorrow I go back to work after taking two weeks off.  I am not looking forward to pile of paperwork that awaits me, but I do miss many of my co-workers and (almost) all the students I work with.  Of course I am pretty sure I will miss Charlotte, Emily, and late morning naps even more.

And so while I go back to Farnsworth to resume my old job, I am pretty sure there is a job here that will always be waiting for me at night.  I realized yesterday, as I was washing Charlotte's cloth diapers, I am responsible for everyone's poop in the household except Emily's.  I tend to the cat boxes, walk the dog, and now am Charlotte's poopsmith.

By the way, the Poopsmith is a character from Homestarrunner.

Mike Nawrocki: Speech Language Pathologist by day, Poopsmith by night.