The terrible truth about toilet training...and number twos!

Sorry to start the New Year off with a post about a shitty subject, but have you ever done a Google Image search for 'toilet training?'  Well I have, and the images are more than a bit deceiving.  What you'll find is smiling toddlers, perfectly posed parents proudly praising their children, and absolutely no mess at all.  What a load of crap (pardon the pun)!  

The main reason I say this is because I’ve just experienced another problematic public toilet moment with little man.  You see in a bustling public toilet, in the middle of a busy shopping centre, little man decided to haul himself onto a toilet and, after spying something between his legs, grabbed hold of the interesting object.  Turns out, the object that had captured little man’s attention was his willy.  And he happened to grab it the exact same moment he began to wee.  Now as you can imagine, as his willy wasn’t pointed down towards the porcelain and was sticking up towards the ceiling, the fountain-like effect was rather spectacular. 

Little man's fountain wasn't quite as spectacular as this one.  But you get the picture, right?

 Thankfully, because I hadn’t planned on the accident and didn’t have a change of clothes handy (I do realise this probably makes me sound about as disorganised as I am) the spray missed little man’s clothes.  So after quickly wiping the floor, and frantically scrubbing my hands, I was out of there. 


To be honest, I was quite relieved on this occasion to be only cleaning a bit of wee off the floor.  After all, the experience that had occurred only a few days earlier, when I’d been forced to push an overflowing trolley full of groceries along a carpeted floor of a small shopping centre (now I know what you’re thinking: Who on earth installs carpet in a shopping centre?) up a ramp and through two narrow doors, so little man could go to the toilet, was a far more eventful, and not to mention messy, one. 

You see, little man, who is only a few weeks into his toilet training journey, has not yet mastered the task of wiping his own bottom.  Not that I expect him to be able to this of course.  But I don’t remember the same level of messiness when little madam was first toilet training.  Perhaps she had longer legs than little man, or had perfected her dismount from the toilet at an earlier stage.  Whatever the case, little man’s method of getting off the toilet – the way he rather ungracefully slides off, instead of carefully lifting himself off - has caused me (on more than one occasion whilst at home) to head into the toilet armed with rubber gloves, disinfectant and a heavy duty scrubber to remove the thickly smeared evidence of his unwiped bottom off the toilet seat. 

Heavy duty ones of these are usually needed

So when I finally had made sure the door was propped open by the heavily loaded trolley, and turned around to discover that little man had locked himself inside the cubicle, I was immediately concerned.  And several minutes later, well after little madam had emerged from finishing her business in the second (and only other) toilet cubicle, I began to really worry.  ‘Are you okay in there?’  I asked.  No reply.  ‘Please unlock the door’, I pleaded.  No reply.  Another lady entered the second cubicle, as I began to knock urgently on the door. 

Not a good sign

Eventually, little man reluctantly unlocked the door.  And the sight that greeted me, was not only a heavily poo-smeared toilet seat – with poo that had been further spread by little man’s efforts to clean up the mess himself with half a roll of toilet paper – but a poo-covered little man.  I mean not only was it all over his bottom and halfway up his back, his t-shirt was pretty much plastered with it.   This time, there were no rubber gloves, no disinfectant, and no heavy duty scrubbing brush to help me out.  Hell, I didn’t even have a spare t-shirt of a packet of lousy wipes. 

So after desperately trying to clean the seat with dry toilet paper, I was forced to exit the cubicle (and with a red face explain to the couple of people now queuing for the toilet, as I wet a wad or two more of toilet paper in the sink, that my son wasn’t quite finished his business) then return to clean up the mess.  All while throwing instructions toward little madam to, ‘Look after the trolley while I take care of your brother!’  After finally cleaning up the mess, I was then faced with the job of having to remove little man’s grubby t-shirt.  Which then caused even more poo to spread up little man’s back, which forced me to again leave the cubicle to revisit the basin with more toilet paper. 

And, after the mess was finally cleaned up, just to make the whole situation that little bit worse than it already was (yes, it is possible), as we finally left the cubicle together a kind old lady, looked at my lovely shirtless little man, then up at me with a rather bewildered look on her face, and asked, ‘Why is he not wearing a top?’  As I hurriedly scrubbed my hands with twenty sprays of foamy soap under the warm tap, I muttered an explanation that his top had gotten dirty.  The old lady then tutted, shook her head, and stated, ‘It doesn’t matter if it’s dirty.  Just put it on.’  She then gestured the air, and added ‘It’s too cold.’  All I could do was shake my head and laugh nervously while I muttered, ‘If only you knew.’ 

So, that day, as I battled my way out of the toilet, with little madam and a shirtless little man in tow, feeling more frazzled and exhausted than a parent with two sets of triplets under the age of two, I began to reflect on my horrendous experience.  And I asked myself:  Could it ever get worse?  Well.  I suppose I should be thankful that...crap...no...sorry.  I had nothing to be thankful for at that moment.   
 

Thanks, little man, for the worst public toilet experience EVER.  Love you!