1st Poop on the Potty!

Today, July 20th 2009, 6 days before his 2nd birthday, will go down as a red letter day in the history of Henry Oppenheimer.

It all started this morning when, as my boss phrased it to me, I was "lucky" to be given an "opportunity to excel" in Huron, South Dakota. In non-corporate America speak, on a busy Monday, I had to drive 2 hours each way to Huron to meet someone for a claim today.

On the way there, I spoke with Chris, a good friend of mine from Minneapolis, whose wife I believe reads this blog (Hi Jen). He informed me how proud he was of his son William, who is a few months younger than Henry. William pooped and peed on the potty for the 1st time this morning.
With genuine excitement, I congratulated Chris on edging closer to never having to change another diaper (a landmark day for any parent), and having a clever son. At the same time, I felt a hint of jealousy in my stomach. We have tried to get Henry interested in the potty for a few months now, and while I think he understands what the potty's primary function is, all he has really used it for to this point was to stand on so he could switch the bathroom light off and on (and off, and on, and off, and on, etc.... you get the idea).

I got home this evening, and about 2 minutes after I walked in the door, Henry said "Poop." We checked him, he hadn't pooped so we put him on the potty. To our shock and surprise, he immediately pooped. This was very exciting, causing such enthusiastic cheers and applause from Marisa and I that it scared the crap out of both kids. Henry and Gemma both immediately started crying. Henry ran into the other room and would not come back into the bathroom.

After a little drama caused by my inability to get the poop from the potty into the toilet (it took a detour onto the floor), we managed to coax Henry back into the bathroom to flush his new poop down the toilet.

I do have to say at this stage that, unlike Kate from "John and Kate plus 8," we did not photo this event, thus, I have not put any photos of Henry pooping on this blog entry. My personal opinion is that photographing a kid with their 1st poop, or anyone with poop for that matter, is disgusting. Trust me, like any man with hair on his chest, I have plugged the bathroom with some logs that I am proud of, but I have never had the urge to photograph it.

I would like to think Henry was proud of himself, but I am afraid that our vociferous reaction may have scared him so much that it put him back a few months in the potty training stages. I did, however, allow myself to dream for a few moments, of a day when I do not have to clean up poop on a daily basis.

This dream was shattered approximately 30 minutes later when Henry pooped again, this time in his diaper. He gave no warning, did not tell us about it, and had no intention of using the potty. Back to square one !!!