Down the Drain

I've been debating all week whether or not to post this story. But a little encouragement from my Mom to write it down somewhere has nudge me to write this post.

So Sunday night Sylas gets his usual bath. 2 minutes to soap, a quick rinse and then about a 10 minutes bath time to play. So he's been in there for about five minutes and I tell him, "Ok, 5 more minutes ok? " As I looked at him, he was in the squatting position, which he usually never is while in the bathtub, but at that time I did not think any thing of it. I leave the bathroom and about two minutes later I hear him yell,

"Mommy all done."

It's always a fight to get him out, so I was surprised to see that he's matured enough to know that playing in the water too long isn't good for you. So I go in and see him at the drain end of the bathtub watching the water go down. And he says,

"Mommy, poo-poo all gone" as he is pointing down the drain.

I give him a look of disbelief and said, "Whhhhaaaattt?"

He replies, "All gone" and smiles, as if he was showing off to me that he pooped and cleaned all by himself. He expected me to be proud of him for accomplishing that.

"Show me!"

He comes trotting over to the other end of the tub, turns around, and bends over to show me his clean butt, not a trace of poop left. I quickly shower him AGAIN.


All I could say was "Kha, poo-poo in toilet, not in the bathtub." as I pointed to the toilet.

I bring him out and tell him, "Go tell Daddy what you did."

He runs out and yells "Daddy, poo-poo all gone!" in the most excited voice.

Daddy looks at me and says, "What? In the bathtub?" I just simply nod and say, "Yes...in the bathtub."

Kha was so proud of himself of what he accomplished and I didn't realized that at first until I told my friend the story. A 3-year-old's sense of accomplishment may be the same feeling as an adult's sense of accomplishment, but all for probably 2 completely different accomplishments. I do feel proud of him and hope that he is able to tell me everything. I don't want him to feel fearful of my judgement/punishment when he does tell me things, whether it's something good or bad.