The Belligerent Butt-Wiper

Now that my kids are growing up, it's harder for me to blog about them. Primarily because - while they don't care what I wrote about their toddlerhood shenanigans - they don't want the world to know what their older selves are up to (spoiler alert: mostly video games). I can't imagine why they wouldn't want their mother to publicly spill the beans about their every adolescent issue, but they don't seem too keen on the idea. Bunch of blog-derailing spoilsports, is what they are.*

*Side note: is anyone else totally thankful that social media didn't exist when we were kids? Because OH MY GOD THAT WOULD BE SO EMBARRASSING.

Fortunately, I still have one left - one newly-minted four-year-old - who doesn't give a flying fig what I say about him. And so I'm going to say this:

I am so. So. SOOOOO TIRED OF WIPING HIS BUTT.

As we all know, getting your kid officially potty-trained is far from the end of your toilet troubles. It's not like you're off the hook as soon as they can make it to the bathroom. So, while Corbin has been potty trained for over a year now, he still has trouble in one key area: namely, getting himself clean.
When a kid wipes, it isn't a neat process. They smeeeeeeear. Then it ends up everywhere - their fingers, the toilet seat, the backs of their legs, and whatever they happen to touch. Before you know it your bathroom looks like a turd massacre. It's poopocalypse up in there. And, oh, your crapper is now clogged because they use approximately 3/4 of a roll of toilet paper (while making an even bigger mess. Oh, the irony!).

So yeah. I wipe my kid's butt until he gains the fine motor skills or whatever skills are required to not make a freaking disastrous mess while doing it.

If he pooped once a day like a normal person, it wouldn't bother me so much. But here's the issue we're running into: the kid refuses to poop more than one little rabbit-turd at a time. Do you know how many little turds make up one giant poop? Like, twenty. Consequently, he's in the bathroom a bazillion times a day. And I hear the question that haunts my dreams: "MOM, CAN YOU WIPE MY BUTT?"

I have tried patiently explaining it to him. "Hey buddy, can you sit there a little bit longer? Because if there's one piece of poop, that means there are more waiting to get out."

And he'll sit. And he'll sit. And the poop will dry onto his butt and require a chisel and a belt sander to remove. And still he'll say, "Nope! No more poop!"

... Yet ten minutes later: "MOM! CAN YOU WIPE MY BUTT?"

Y'all? It's driving me certifiably crazy. We are going through toilet paper like we're eating it (and it's actually not Cameron this time). I've purchased enough flushable wet wipes to pave a damp, squishy, fresh-scented path from here to Australia.

No matter how important a task I'm doing, I can almost guarantee that it'll be interrupted by the request from the bathroom. I keep trying to remind myself that this is a phase ... but the question is, how many more times can I drop everything and buff his booty-hole before I GO OFF THE DEEP END?! You may be witness to my descent into total madness.

Hopefully it will at least make for some good blog posts.