Kaia spent most of today wanting to poop. Well, she would have pooped easily if we had just given her a diaper to wear, but we’ve been pretty strict about the “no diaper” situation since we officially started the Oh Crap! method last Saturday. She needs to learn to do all pee and poop in the potty. She’s been scared to poop on the potty, though, and we’ve been struggling to make her see that it’s a good thing. We’ve read her multiple potty and poop books. I’ve squished out slime from my hand and showed her that’s what poop is like when it comes out of her butt. I’ve asked her if she wants Peter Rabbit to poop on the potty. We’ve given her endless toys and things to play with while sitting on the potty. She just can’t wrap her head around it. She did poop in the potty a few times, with a large one on Friday night when Chris coaxed her; that was the real win after struggling literally all day long at school. It doesn’t matter if it’s her little potty, on her travel potty seat at home, on her travel potty seat outside at a public rest room. She is terrified of the feeling of letting her poop go.

So while I prepared nine different components of homemade bibimbap today, Chris basically chased her around the apartment, coaxing her to get on the potty and get her poop out. Because a little poop would always come out, there was endless wiping, endless little pellets, or what the Oh Crap! support group calls “Hershey kisses,” and endless sanitizing and cleaning of any surface where said Hershey kisses landed. My baby’s poor little bottom is getting the equivalent of a diaper rash. My Kaia has never had a real diaper rash before other than some tiny red dots after about four weeks at daycare in her first class. She has no idea what this uncomfortable, sore feeling is like. I was hoping we could take her to the playground in the morning, but we couldn’t let her go without pooping.

She finally pooped today, in her little potty, at around 4pm. So we had about an hour to go to the playground and let her run around before dinner. Somehow, that poop was not enough. More is still coming!! She still had some “skidmarks” on her butt that we had to clean, both on her and on her shorts. I wasn’t quite sure how I imagined potty training would go. But I did think that poop would be a struggle since most kids struggle with this. I just didn’t realize that the “accidents” I would mostly be cleaning up would be little pellets, smears, indicating that poop is slowly but surely inching its way out.

We’ve managed to survive just over a week of potty training now. The pee has been relatively good. But I think we really need her to a) get comfortable pooping on the potty, and b) be adaptable to different toilets and her travel potty seat. We’re traveling very soon with her, so this whole potty training timing is a bit nerve wracking.