Potti Malou

Molli Malou had her 20-month birthday on Friday.

She celebrated the last night of her 19th month (Thursday) in curious fashion. We’ve begun potty training, as I’ve mentioned, so every night she gets to run around naked for about half an hour before we put her into her PJs. That gives her a chance to use the potty, which she likes and we encourage. She almost manages to deposit at least a little pee, and almost always manages to get most of it in the potty… I suppose this process is harder with boys!

Trine was at school Thursday night, and I had ordered myself a junk food dinner for delivery from a local pizzaria. I thought I’d timed it very well: by the time it arrived, Molli Malou would have been fed and would be running around naked using her potty and coming to me, from time to time, to beg for a fry. (She loves fries.)

Molli Malou actually did use the potty for a little pee before the delivery came, so I wasn’t even concerned about what she was doing while I stood at the front door and exchanged cash for pizza and fries.

But when I came back into the room and set the food on the dining table, Molli Malou was crouching beside her potty, pointing downward, exclaiming, “Poo! Poo!”

Normally she’s saying, “Tiss, tiss,” and I’ve explained what that means. So I jumped to the logical conclusion: she’d finally taken a dump in the potty! I rushed over to confirm my suspicions–and found only some brown smudges in the bottom and along one side of the potty. And some more smudges on the floor. And on Molli Malou’s fingers, which were moving perilously close to her mouth–!

Had she already eaten any? I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell. But I’d have to assume she had.

In panic I searched the web to see if my daughter had just poisoned herself by eating her own excrement. There was nothing out there, but I must have given the folks at Google some pretty interesting search strings to chuckle over.

Finally I called Deb, who was kind enough to call U.S. Poison Control. They said it wasn’t any worse than eating dirt, but that she might appreciate a good bath.

I’m going to bed now, but here are some pics from this week that require no particular explanation.