More to Taylor's Story

***Contents and image of this post aren't for the squeamish!

So I thought we were done with everything and that everything was back to normal. I was wrong. Taylor went down for her nap today in our room. I heard her get out of bed, so I went upstairs to check on her. Well, she had to go potty. I told her to hurry up and get back to bed. She came downstairs a few minutes later because she needed some toilet paper. Her bum was so messy, I cleaner her up downstairs and went back upstairs with her to help her get dressed and get to bed. We got to the bathroom and there on the bathroom floor were 2 piles of poo. GROSS!!!! I couldn't believe she'd pooed on the floor. It didn't make any sense. I cleaned it up and warned her that if it happened again she'd get in BIG trouble and talked to her about how we go poo in the potty and not on the floor.

Well, a little later we heard Taylor get out of bed again. After a few minutes she came down again saying she needed toilet paper (even though we'd already brought some up before). I asked Shelby to go run upstairs (I was feeding Declan at the time) to see if Taylor had pooed on the floor. Shelby got back and told me no, but Taylor kept telling me she wasn't ever going to let me go upstairs to my bathroom. I knew something was up, so I handed Declan to Tom and ran upstairs. When I first looked in the bathroom I didn't see anything. I started to open the door all the way when I heard it scrape against something. I looked down and saw this (this view is actually from behind the door) . . .



I could not believe it!!! I started thinking back over the past day or two and I suddenly realized what was going on. I first thought back to Saturday when she first pooed on her own after the whole ordeal from Friday; she had said she'd been standing up when she pooed, it fell on the floor, and she'd picked it up with toilet paper and put it in the potty. I'd cleaned up the floor after that, but didn't think much of it; I figured maybe the laxative had kicked in, and she hadn't been able to control it. Then I thought back to what she'd told me at breakfast Saturday morning before she'd pooed on her own. She had told me that she wasn't going to poo again; she was just going to have me get it out of her each time. I realized that, because the first time she'd pooed had been on the floor, she must have decided that the only way she could poo was if she pooed on the floor!! I talked with her, and that's exactly what she'd decided, and she was refusing to go poo on the potty (now remember this is my EXTREMELY strong-willed child, and getting her to change her mind can be next to impossible).

Now I'll have to say I was upset, frustrated, and extremely disgusted. I gave her the option of sitting with me while I cleaned up the mess or going to her room for time-out while I cleaned up. She refused to sit with me, so I put her in her room and started cleaning. I sanitized EVERYTHING . . . amen to Clorox Wipes and Lysol 4-in-1 Cleaner and carpet cleaning vacuums. It was definitely a good thing that it took me a long time to clean because it allowed me to calm down and gather myself.

Now, I was also hoping that the lengthy time-out would help Taylor remember not to poo on the floor ever again because a LONG time ago this method worked for me. I used to get "sick" a lot in Kindergarten - 24 days worth. Now some were legit, but a lot were not. My mom got tired of it, and so the next time I got "sick" she made me stay in my room until my sister came home from school because, if I was too sick to go to school, then I was too sick to do anything anyways. I remember, and this is one of a few memories from that time, sitting in my doorway just crying and screaming to get out. I remember it very vividly to this day. I can tell you for sure that in 1st Grade I was only sick a few days the entire year . . . so I'd obviously learned my lesson. Hopefully Taylor will remember how much she hated sitting in time-out waiting for me to finish cleaning and hopefully she'll remember/decide to not poo on the floor ever again.

I still can't believe she thought that she could only poo on the floor and that she just wasn't able to go on the potty. Now we just have to wait for the next time she needs to poo to see if she's decided she can poo on the potty. I hope so . . . for her sake and mine!!