The Importance of Being Earnest...About Poop

Lately I've gotten so pre-occupied with poop that I've forgotten that ridding yourself of waste in the established and accepted manner that society has taught us isn't really all that high of a priority for a two and a half year old. In fact, despite it's relatively high ranking in our adult world of priorities and basic life skills, it really isn't such a big deal. We all poop. We all pee. We all figure it out eventually. The brilliance in watching Zoey navigate the enterprise is that she reminds you that pooping and peeing really mean Jack crap in the big picture.

We've taken to the lab partner approach to "dropping the kids off at the pool", in which if we have to go use the bathroom, we talk Zed into coming along. We read, we pretend to paint things with her wide selection of paintless paint brushes, and she asks me why my bum looks so funny, and by my bum she means that whole frontal area place. I do my best to explain it, and of course, I also do my best to discretely do my business with heaping amounts of modesty and humility, but there are boys and there are girls and she's gonna kinda figure it all out eventually, so...shrug...she poops, I poop, and I get kinda bashful about the whole thing. She stares, I pull my t-shirt down a little more when I'm sitting in that awkward position, and of course she asks big, bold questions which I answer, and then she shrugs and asks if I want to sing a song. Pooping is just the thing that happens while we do all that other important stuff, like coloring, and reading, and getting penises mixed up with bums, and contemplating the whole "girls and boys are different" concept.

"Daddy, your bum looks funny," she says, when of course it's not my bum at all.

"Bums are around behind us Zo. It looks funny in the front 'cause that's not my bum," I respond. Weird look back at me.

"Wanna color?" She flips.

"Yup."

She likes using the poddy when Dad or Mom come along for the excrement flushing ride, but the whole pooping deal is only part of this great adventure. Coloring, confusing body parts, and making Dad feel awkward is just as important. This is serious business, but the pooping is just a small part of this business. She doesn't remember the poops, but she remembers that Daddy's bum looks weird.