Sam McPoops

Sam is reluctant to poop. Every other day or so, he announces loudly and urgently that he needs to poop, usually in a desperate fast-paced shuffle towards the bathroom, while he’s reaching behind, clutching his butt. It’s such a frenzied scene that I’m always unsure whether to assist him in the bathroom or call 911.

Then, he sits on the toilet and declares, “No, there’s no poop in me.” He hops down and returns to playing, causing him to repeat that behavior thirty to sixty minutes later. For most of the day. And no, bribes don’t work. When Tighe’s home, he physically restrains Sam on the toilet seat and sometimes that works. Sometimes.  And then we have to endure high-pitched screeching from the bathroom until he releases the first morsel of a bowel movement. Then he’s perfectly happy again, singing and talking to himself from the porcelain throne.

But a toddler—or an adult for that matter—can only avoid pooping for so long. And so, he’s pooped in many inconvenient places at inopportune times. Like the public library. Or at swim lessons. Or in the car on the way home from the pool. Even in the middle of the night, screaming and doing his butt-clutching shuffle the entire way to our bedroom.

Sam had been exhibiting his poop-averse performance all day last Friday, but I wasn’t worried because I felt like he was gradually getting better, more regular and confident, about the whole defecation procedure.

Tighe was away for the weekend, so like any good health-conscious parent, I told Nate and Sam I’d take them to McDonald’s for dinner. They really don’t eat anything there except the smoothies and since those claim to have fruit-related products in the ingredients, I’m happy to oblige. And they love the Playplace, even though this particular McDonald’s is one the dirtiest fast-food establishments I’ve ever been in. And I’ve been inside the one on York Road in Baltimore’s Govans neighborhood.  For those of you unfamiliar with that one, ‘Baltimore’ should be clue enough.

I unpacked their smoothies and Happy Meals—so they’d have cheap plastic toys to shoot at me later—and parked myself at a table, prepared to check emails and Facebook and basically zone out for a while. Nate and Sam darted back and forth between the colorful slides and the table, taking small bites and sips.

It was still early in the dinner hour, and the place was almost empty—just a half dozen or so elderly people catching the early bird special, a 5 year-old girl scampering through the Playplace with Nate and Sam, and her mom seated a safe distance away.

Suddenly, I heard Sam’s “I’ve been wronged” screech. It’s piercing. Heads turned to identify the source of the sound as my eyes scanned the mesh netting looking for Sam.

“I need poop! I need poop!”

Oh, crap. Why didn’t I make him poop before we left the house? What was I thinking?

“Sam, come here right now!” I ordered. “Let’s go find the bathroom!”

I picked him up, though he was still shoeless and screeching about needing to poop, and carried him across the restaurant.

A Spanish-speaking family had just entered the restaurant, the mom corralling the six kids into the Playplace as she collected their dinner orders. They all paused to stare as I passed with my stinky son.

Once in the stall, I pulled down his pants to find a…hmm, a shitload? a ton? a lot? Let’s go with a LOT of poop in his underwear and caked in his butt cheeks. And it stunk, probably because it’d been decaying in his lower intestine for most of the day.

I dumped the remnants into the toilet and tried my best to scrub the skid marks off his cheeks and hamstrings with the soggy, disintegrating toilet paper I had amassed in my fists. The underwear was, in my opinion, unsalvageable—or at least not worth keeping in my purse while Nate and Sam finished their dinners—so I tossed them in a plastic bag and into the trashcan. I pulled his sweatpants back up, sprayed a little body spray in his crotch region and sent him back to play. Then I scrubbed my hands like I was Danny Tanner.

By the time I returned to the play area, at least three more kids had joined the growing gang, and Nate was running happily among them.  And Sam, feeling lighter with emptied bowels, didn’t hesitate to rejoin the group. I made a mental note to give them a bath when we got home and returned to the company of my phone.

When suddenly…

“I need poop! I need poop! I need poop!”

It came from the very top of the play structure.

He has got to be kidding me!

I saw him standing on the highest landing, grabbing his crotch with one hand and gripping his butt with the other. His face was red, covered in tears and snot.

Parents were peering upwards trying to determine which child was hurt. A group of children had surrounded Sam, some being nosy and others wanting to help this poor toddler.

Nate slid out the bottom of the slide as I marched past it, on my way to retrieve Sam.

“Come on, Nate, we have to leave!”

“What? Why?”

“Because Sam pooped his pants and this is technically a restaurant.”

I could hear the juvenile inquiries above me:

“What’s wrong?”

“Where’s your mom?”

“Qué pasó?”

And Sam screamed in reply to all of them: “NO! I want Erin! Erin, come up here!”

“What? Absolutely not. I’m not climbing all the way up there! Slide down the slide and I’ll catch you!”

“No, no, no, no, nooooooo!”

The 5 year-old girl who had befriended us earlier, scooted past me, heading up. “I’ll help him,” she reassured me.

“Okay, thanks,” I said dubiously.

I know enough Spanish to confirm that the Spanish-speaking family sitting behind me was talking about us. How could they not? Every single kid in the place had either climbed up to investigate Sam’s situation or was peering upwards while chomping down greasy fries. Except Nate. He had returned to his seat and was dunking a nugget in ketchup, his back to the giant playground.

“Sam, please come down here right now.”

“Noooooooo!”

Defeated, I began my climb, pushing my giant belly to the side as I pulled my legs and feet up to each subsequent level of the play structure. Why did they have to make it so high? The one at Chick-Fil-A is so accessible!

“Whoa! How’d you get up here?” one of the kids said, surprised to see an adult so high in the sky.

I grabbed Sam, clamping the waistband of his pants in case any poop might slip out during our descent.

“Nate, we’re leaving!” Still holding Sam over my shoulder, I threw their shoes into my bag, pitched trash and scraps of food into the trashcan, and convinced Nate to carry not only his own smoothie but Sam’s too.

Sam’s stench was already suffocating me, but I persevered and made it to the car. He was still screaming and could barely hear me telling him how mad I was that he hadn’t pooped in the toilet earlier in the day when I told him to.

We made it home where I deposited them into the tub and scrubbed them clean, which I would have done after any trip to a McDonald’s Playplace. I threw away his sweatpants and lit some scented pumpkin candles to remove the poop memories from my olfactory glands.

I put on a movie for them and sat down with my laptop as they took turns shooting me with their Happy Meal toys. I counted the seconds until bedtime, praying that I wouldn’t be awakened in the middle of the night with another urgent need to poop.

Sam and Wally Forever

Well, as Nate’s pre-K class starts to peel off into romantic pairs—seriously, it’s not even spring yet!—Sam, too, has decided to take a paramour. And it’s Wally, our dog. And it’s very much unrequited.

Though really, Sam’s always had a bit of a crush on Wally. Nate, on the other hand, came home from the hospital as a newborn and seemed to view Wally as part of the landscape of our house, glancing over him as he did the ugly floral print chair next to the fireplace. Meanwhile, Wally resented the attention-hogging infant, so they never established much of a bond.

And then Sam came along.

As an infant, he was not the best sleeper, and we would often bring him downstairs after bedtime to rock him back to sleep on a giant physio ball while we watched House of Cards. Sam’s a stubborn and manipulative guy, just like Frank Underwood.

One night, exasperated with his insomnia, I placed Sam on a blanket on the floor—probably so I could finish a bowl of ice cream. He wasn’t even able to crawl yet, but somehow he managed to worm his way over to Wally’s bed and wiggle onto his neck to entangle himself in Wally’s fur. They lounged there for the better part of an hour, Sam massaging Wally with a combination of curiosity and affection, and Wally unsure whether to be grateful for the attention or fearful of his prodding little fingers.

It was certainly more soothing for Sam than for Wally and we were soon able to put Sam to sleep with ease. That night anyway.

But that was the start of the unrequited romance.

Sam’s never used a pacifier, he’s used Wally instead. When he’s distressed or agitated, which is almost always, he wraps his arms around Wally and buries his face in his neck. After a few moments of cuddling and some inquisitive finger jabbing of Wally’s face, Sam is always calmer, more serene—for about five minutes.

When we come home from an outing, Sam seeks out Wally to tell him where we went and what we did. “We went Trader Joe’s, Wa. Got lollipops.” Wally is his equal, his brother—a brother whom we always seem to mistakenly leave at home when we run errands.

Sam apportions part of every meal to Wally and takes pride in the fact that he’s nourishing his dog and using his sharing skills. “Wally doesn’t like grapes!” or “Wally likes Cheez-its!”

But, like any pair of lovers, Wally and Sam have their ups and downs. Wally purposely positions himself in between Sam and his breakfast plate every morning. In fairness, Sam usually takes one bite of his waffle or bagel and wanders away to gather Lego’s or something, so in Wally’s canine sense of justice, the plate is up for grabs.

When Sam returns, though, he emits his squealiest squeal—that he reserves for these moments of injustice—and shouts out, “Move, Wa!” while kicking him in the butt or the throat or the ribs, whatever Wally’s left vulnerable.

“You move Wally, Dad?” Sam asks after Wally refuses to budge despite the pain from the bruised ribs he must be feeling.

“Huh?” Tighe looks up from his precious DVR-ed American Ninja Warrior, just long enough to say, “Move, Wally.”

Wally un-wedges himself from his post next to the coffee table and drags himself to higher, safer ground on the other side of the sofa. Sam takes another bite and then scoots away again to his Lego’s, which he refers to as “Ninja Turtles.” Wally slithers back, next to Sam’s plate, and the cycle repeats.

During the day, Wally’s favorite place to sleep is in the office, next to a ground level, arch-shaped window from where he can watch squirrels, chipmunks, birds, and the occasional cat, slowly and bravely meandering through our yard.

This also happens to be Sam’s favorite place to dump out all his Lego’s and a basket of books, and every wooden Melissa and Doug puzzle we own. As any parent, caregiver, or former child knows, applying one’s bodyweight to the surface of Lego’s causes pain, and it seems this is true for dogs as well.

Wally avoids the room when Nate and Sam are in there playing—one never knows what toys will suddenly become weapons or projectiles, and Wally can’t always escape fast enough to avoid being caught in the crossfire. But when they’ve retreated back to the TV or to the mess hall for a feeding, Wally will return, worming his way through the toys to create just enough space to catch a nap before the ceasefire ends and he finds himself in a battleground again.

But if Sam returns and finds his dog, his best friend, sprawled out peacefully, with perhaps a leg or a tail resting on the corner of a puzzle or sought-after Lego, he lets out another squealiest squeal, demanding that Wally move. 

But Wally’s stubborn. Or just really tired from a long day of guarding the house, so oftentimes, he’ll stay there. Until Sam’s squealiest squeals turn to screeches, at a volume and pitch that no ear can withstand. Then he lumbers away, still drowsy from his incomplete nap. Sometimes he stands by the back door, seeking out some quiet time in the backyard. If the weather is nice, he sits on the patio for hours, like a lion overlooking the savannah, and when he returns to continue resting in the house, Sam stretches out on top of him, massaging and caressing.

“Wally’s penis is dirty, Mom.”

“Yes, Sam. Don’t touch it.”

We’ve been over that a lot. Because boundaries are important and even Wally needs some privacy.