Elimination Communication??

If I had read up on this style of parenting I may have been prepared for tonight......

We had an amazing dinner, homemade Chicken and Dumplings, it was awesome!!! We are trying to let the Turtle self feed as much as possible, and I knew this meal would be interesting to say the least.

It was.

The dogs got most of her dinner, as she suddenly thinks she must be a mommy bird.... she will chew up her food, and then spit it on the floor and giggle hysterically as the dogs try to kill each other to get there first. Oh yeah this is why I have 2 clear shower curtains to protect the floor from her newest fascination. Ok, I will admit it is kinda funny to watch the dogs bust ass to get the tiny little morsel that she drops, but I can't let her know that!!

Between the Chicken and Dumplings, and the strawberry pop tart she had for desert, she was a mess to say the least, so I made Clark undress her right in the dining room over the shower curtain (I can get most any stain out of her clothes trust me!!!) so that the dogs could catch the crumbs, and so that my side of the bed would remain dinner less. (Clark has this thing that he does every night when he gets her ready for her bath where he tosses her on the bed and tickles her til she laughs... well with all that food stuck to her clothes, I would have been sleeping in pop tart... no thanks)

I had run her tub, and he brought her in and put her in the water. Now most nights I get in with her because now that she has become a "cruiser" she has no fear, I need to be right there to keep her from busting her face, or other parts while she tries to climb around the tub. Tonight however I just didn't feel like I wanted to get in, and was going to make it a short bath anyway. So I sat on the toilet, and watched her play.

Turtle has recently found another past time that amuses her to no end.... she is a very gassy girl, and being Clark's daughter, she finds passing gas to be just as hysterical as "feeding" the dogs. She will even laugh if one of the dogs does it. Oh hell who am I kidding she laughs when anything in the house farts for crying out loud. She has brought herself literally to tears twice when she has "Bubbled" (Clark's term) in the tub... it was cute, but I have to be the adult here, and pretend it wasn't funny as hell. Right??

So I am sitting on the toilet... and no I wasn't going, I had the lid down.... geez.... she is splashing and doing her thing when all of a sudden she farts, and laughs. She was over it in like 3 seconds, and back to playing. She farts again, giggles for 5 seconds this time, and goes right back to her toys. About 2 minutes later she looks up at me, gets the biggest grin on her face, farts, long and loud, smiles bigger then ever, and in the instant that it took to register in my tired little mind what was going to happen...... she laughed and crapped in the tub!!!!!

It wouldn't have been that bad if I had been able to stop laughing and hold her over the toilet, but I just couldn't pull it together. The look on her face was priceless. All the noise brought Clark down to the bathroom, and I don't know which I will remember more, the look on her face, or the look on his!!! He totally freaked out, and started yelling at me to get her out of that poopy water, now we were going to have to wash her with bleach (ok dad), and throw all of her tub toys away. He barely let me get her washed up before he snatched her out of my hands, and was soothing her. She on the other hand was more interested in the huge mess that she had left in the tub!!!

Most parents get to wait until their child is a toddler before they pull that famous move, but Turtle is obviously an overachiever already!! She has never even had a #2 diaper after dinner, so this was a first all the way around. Now that I know the signs, maybe I will try to get her on the toilet.....