Potty Training with Pride and Prejudice

Vital:  Our court date for Roman is tomorrow, Tuesday at about 11a.m.

Details:  Another glorious day in paradise. 

I actually don’t mind Mondays as much as other days here.  The cupboards are usually well stocked from our Sunday Night Shopping Sprees, we are usually caught up on school and can do a days work without worrying about making up a lesson here or there, and we usually end up staying “home” all day, since we only visit Roman about twice a week. 

Today would have been uneventful if we were only more competent parents.  Bill worked comfortably on his three computer screens while I did school with the kids all morning and most of the afternoon until about 3pm.  Bill went for a run, I took the kids to a playground near our apartment, we had Surprise Soda (turned out to be some sort of sweet beer) and  “hamburgers” for dinner (you might think that burgers would be difficult to corrupt, but, if you think that, you’ve never been to Ukraine).   Then we sat down to catch the final episode of Pride and Prejudice.

Right in the middle of the show, just as Mr. Bingley was about to pop the question to Jane Bennett, Ruslan crawled over to Bill, patted him on the leg, smiled and said, “tualet.”  Bill mentioned that he was asking to go about every hour all day today as he got up to take him.  Ruslan had pooped early Saturday morning, but he had not asked to poop since then.  When they go to the toilet, Bill noticed that there was some poop on Ruslan’s underwear and told him that he needed to sit on the toilet for a few minutes.  Ruslan said, “no,” but since it had been three full days since he last pooped, Bill sat him down on the toilet.  Well, that did it.  Once again, Ruslan had a tantrum to end all tantrums.  Good Grief, that child can scream.  I came in just as he was gathering steam and Bill and I agreed that we could NOT let him off the toilet until he stopped screaming.  It was an unfortunate moment to declare a stand-off, but at the time, it seemed unavoidable. 

At first, Ruslan was just screaming to get down, then he started to struggle. I mean, he was REALLY struggling against Bill, who was holding Ruslan on the potty so he wouldn’t fall over. I finally got a towel to put under Ruslan’s legs, since I was worried that he was going to hurt himself.  After about five minutes of shrieking unintelligible Ukrainian, he started screaming for me.  I was already in the room, trying to show Ruslan the poop on his underwear, show him how to take some deep breaths, and tell him that he was OK, and if he wanted down, all he had to do was stop screaming and say, “down.”  Of course, he was concentrating on screaming so I wasn’t getting very far.  But once he started screaming for me, I had to leave.  I gave him three chances to stop screaming and then I left.  Of course, this left Bill, squatting in front of the toilet bowl, holding the little guy on the potty with both hands, with his ear right about the same level with Ruslan’s mouth.  It’ll be a fond memory for us both for years to come.

Anyway, I went to stand in the hallway and wait by the phone.  After another five minutes, Ruslan suddenly stopped crying and so we took him off the potty.  He had a good amount of slime on his bottom, so we had some idea that there was more to come.  I debated for a minute and then decided that I really did NOT want him to get in the habit of pooping in his pants.  So, much to the disgust of everyone involved, I made Ruslan clean his own underwear.  I held it with him in his hand and we rinsed it in the toilet water, then we used some soap and cleaned it off.  Absolutely Disgusting.  I think Ruslan might have enjoyed it, since EVERYTHING is a new experience for him, so I made a point to say how “yucky” it was until I could see on his face that he got the point.  After that, Bill and I cleaned the toilet, cleaned our hands and went back to Victorian England via BBC.

Neither one of us was sure we had handled the situation right.  Ruslan was so distressed, that I worried we had just brought a whole new realm of trauma into what should be a normal bodily function.  There we sat, half watching Elizabeth Bennett argue with Lady Catherine DeBurgh and half berating ourselves for being such sticklers to protocol when suddenly, Ruslan crawled over to Bill, patted him on the leg, smiled and said, “tualet.” 

To make a long (very long) story short, when I wrote on Saturday that it ALL came out,  I was wrong.  There was still plenty left where that came from.  After about five minutes, I peeked in on Bill who was holding a smiling Ruslan on the pot and all Bill could do was mouth the words, “OH MY GOSH!”  Apparently, I closed the door too quickly, because Bill told me later that he was trying to tell me "fan! fan!" to turn on the bathroom fan, but I missed that. A few minutes later, Bill came up for air long enough to turn on the fan himself and say, “That was the biggest amount of poop I’ve ever seen in my life!  Those fiber pills are working by the way.  There must have been at least three cups worth!’’ 

One of the many problems with Ukrainian toilets is that they don’t hold any water.  Water is a very important feature in a toilet because once the poop sinks below water level, it doesn’t smell nearly as much.  Plus, water cuts down on projectiles.  Well, our toilet doesn’t really have a “bowl.”  It’s sort of a flat, raised landing strip that gracefully curves down toward a little pool of water right at the bottom of the bowl.  We hardly ever hit the water, try as we might.  You are smart to flush as soon as possible.  The result is that it stinks a lot and you have to clean the bowl every time.

Well, I had done my job so well with Ruslan’s stool softeners that it was now the consistency of pancake batter and (though he was no longer screaming, so Bill’s ears were relatively safe) Bill’s face, arms and torso were about 12 inches above Ground Zero.  According to Bill’s later testimony, “It splattered EVERYWHERE.”

I told Bill I thought I should stay away, surmising that this was a man-thing and not necessarily my domain.  I’m really good about knowing when to step back and let that male bonding occur.  So, Bill dove back in and for the second time, cleaned Ruslan’s bottom, cleaned the toilet, cleaned their hands and emerged victorious from the nether-worlds.

Bill sat down again in front of the TV and after another five minutes, just as Mr. Bennett was joking with Elizabeth about the absurdity of marrying Mr. Darcy, Ruslan crawled over to Bill for the third time, patted him on the leg, gave him a smile and said, “tualet.”  Bill hung his head and then went back over to purgatory with poop-boy.  I offered to do the duty, but Ruslan didn’t want me, he wanted Bill.  I lingered outside the door until I couldn’t stand the smell and finally, Bill came out, once again to turn on the fan himself and said, “Marn, you have to see this.”  So, I came in and there was Ruslan, smiling like he had just won a trip to Disney World and sitting over the biggest pile of poop I have ever seen in my life.  –And this was round two! 

I hate to keep using superlatives when explaining our life with this boy, but really, I’ve never seen so much poop in one toilet bowl.  I’d say there was at least 12 ounces of volume there.  It was pretty soft, since I’ve been feeding him a fiber gel once a day…that plus the chili beans…. Yeah.  Poor Bill was still assuming “the position” squatting in front of the bowl, holding Ruslan up with both hands, so I flushed. 

Then, for the third time, we cleaned Ruslan’s bottom, cleaned the toilet, cleaned our hands and emerged victorious from the nether-worlds praying to God that this was the end of it.  Thankfully, it was and due to this experience were able to determine that, in the end, though Elizabeth Bennett did secure Mr. Darcy’s affections and their houses are really cool, yet even so, we would NEVER want to join them in Victorian England because despite our renewed belief in protocol, we could never live for long in a land with no flushing toilets.