It's a sh*tty situation!

When you are preggers, no one warns you about all the funky things that happen to your body.

After you have the baby, no one warns you that they soon have strong opinions.

And when you are just finished with potty training, no one warns you about what happens to your toilet!

But I am here to tell you people out there, especially those still changing baby diapers, you just don't know how easy you have it.

I have now learned the truth about the Post-Potty Training Stage: The stage when your kids think they are good enough at wiping their own butts, so they don't tell you when they "go poop". And you are finally relieved that maybe after years of butt wiping, the only butt you have to worry about wiping is your own.

Then one night you learn the truth when you get up in the middle of the night to pee and you are too tired to turn on the light. You sit on the toilet and that is when you smell that all too familiar smell, but you are only doing a #1, so why is there a #2 smell? By this time you are awake and the smell is strong. It can only mean trouble. You stand up and turn the lights on, and that's when you see it...The Shit Smear! The newly anointed Toilet King or Queen has left their mark...and you sat on it!

Yes, that's when you get a fast education in the wide range of Smears that can appear anywhere in or around the general toilet area. And if you are not careful, you can fall victim like me, either by sitting on it, stepping on it or getting an actual feel for it on the door handle. The Smear can appear in numerous shapes and forms in the homes occupied by those new to the toilet and here are just a few that I have learned about so far:

Racing stripes - These are the obvious shit smears typically found in the toilet, also known as, Skid Marks but not to be confused with the underwear version. These smears are the innocent of all the smears since they are in the right place. And to be honest I am not sure if i want my kids using the toilet brush quite yet. Knowing my kids, it might end up in their hair or teeth.

Snail Trail- This was the first shit smear that I experienced. You can get the "Snail Trail" when your kid doesn't use the step stool to climb up on the toilet seat and kind of drags his/herself up and over, leaving a trail much like a snail or slug. This is extremely dangerous when going to the toilet in the middle of the night. Always turn on the light and check for Snail Trails.

The Mystery Smear - These smears can go days without being noticed mostly because they are often left in remote locations around the toilet or bathroom.  I almost always find these smears underneath my hanging toilet but how they got there I have no idea, nor do I want to know. These are the most difficult to clean since they are usually days old by the time you discover them. I now make a smear sweep to check under my toilet at least once a day.

Cave drawing - This is probably the most common smear in my household. This happens when the wiping goes beyond the toilet paper and the kid tries to rub off his/her contaminated fingers on the wall, thus creating the very primitive art form, cave drawing. To be honest, this type of smear can be further divided into sub-categories like abstracts, rainbow swirls or the dreaded full hand-print drawing. This is when you are happy your walls are tiled!

Recycled - This is the one that grosses me out the worst: There is nothing like grabbing a piece of toilet paper to find that someone has beaten you to the punch. Yep, its a Recycled piece of toilet paper. This is often accompanied by random pieces of paper stuck to the floor or in some rare cases on the toilet seat. The Wiper tried to cover his/her tracks literally and just forgot to rip off that last piece and flush. Always check your paper before use!

The Handle Scandal - Finally, you have the "Handle Scandal", when the experts have decided they are tired of wiping and just wanna make a not-so-clean get away. And of course the first thing they grab is the door handle to escape before mama realizes what they have done. I guess this is what we get for having a toilet so small we couldn't fit in a sink. After my first experience with the Handle Scandal, I promised to never again complain when I am sitting on a toilet and I have a sink shoved up my nose (you have to see a Dutch toilet to understand).

Poopy trapped - This is when your Pooper has sabotaged the toilet with all of the above. This normally happens only one time, because most probably you will go (as we say in SC) ape-shit-crazy threatening your child back into diapers.

You have been warned people out there still lucky enough to still be changing diapers! And buy lots of toilet bowl cleaner because believe me some of the things you will come across would even make the Tidy Bowl Man gag!

Poop Plague

The two suspects watching the horses in our 'hood

I must have done some really naughty things during my childhood or the Big Guy upstairs has really got it in for me because I am getting the worst payback ever...the Tannerstein house is infested with a plague of S#IT!

It's the only explanation that I can think of because I was simply vacuuming the house when my son starts yelling that there was a piece of poop on the floor. I immediately turned off the vacuum and followed him to the crime scene.

I didn't have my glasses on for a close inspection but I thought to myself "there is no way someone has pooped in the middle of my floor!" I had just vacuumed that area 10 minutes earlier.

So what did I do? I turned on the vacuum and sucked up the brown odd-shaped object. Problem solved, it was probably a rotted wet leaf someone dragged in from outside. And that’s when I saw it...the tell-tell smudge that I had dragged with the vacuum across the room. I flipped the vacuum nozzle up and sure enough, the entire brush and inside tunnel was covered in what looked like melted chocolate and I almost vomited from the smell.

It was poop! But where did it come from? My daughter was away with her father so I grabbed my son by his britches and peeked down his pants...Nope, not even the usual skid mark. Where did this mystery poop come from? I began to search the house...there were no other pieces or piles to be found anywhere. I looked up at the celling, nope it was stark white, didn''t come from there. So where in the H-E-Double Hockey sticks did this piece of crap come from?

I interrogated my son and of course he said his sister did it before she left. Impossible she is still in diapers. I started to get paranoid, I had just gone to the bathroom before vacuuming (ok I’m sleep deprived anything can happen). I re-traced my trip to the toilet...nope not me either. Whose poop was this and most importantly why was it in the middle of my floor?

I had to put the investigation on hold; my house began to smell like a toilet. First thing was first, I had to clean out the feces filled vacuum. One packet of wipes later and the nozzle was back to normal, and only a lingering trace could be smelled when I stuck my nose up the tube. I turned on the vacuum and sucked up a few wipes hoping they would "wipe"on their way up. Not sure if they "wiped" but they definitely took the smell away. Good enough for me!

But later that evening another piece appeared. This time my son had stepped in it somewhere in the living room. He came running to Baby Daddy and I with the piece in his hand and his foot covered. As I dug out the poop from his toenails, we re-opened the investigation. Still no leads and now both Baby Daddy and I were puzzled from the poop mystery.

And just when I thought the poop plague had ended, the next morning I found a random piece in the bathroom, lying just in the crack of the door. Like the others, it was an odd shaped piece with a fresh texture. Ok, this was getting out of hand. My kids denied it profusely and I began to really think I was cursed.

Since the infestation, I am on constant poop patrol, monitoring every nook and cranny of my house. I know I’m slowly losing it but this is too much. The mystery remains unsolved, but there hasn't been any unexplained poop sightings in two days now. Maybe the Big Guy or Poo Gods have taken mercy on me. Who knows, but I do know that now I will never complain again about poopy pants, diapers or skid marks. At least they are contained! And I know the source!

Hopefully, the Poop Plague is over but the mystery remains unsolved and with the only witness being an unreliable pooper himself, I guess I will never know...

Peer pressure in pre-school?

My kids version of Jurasic park

I consulted with psychologists. I followed advice from parenting books, friends, teachers, other mothers, my mother, grandmothers...Nothing seemed to help for much longer than two bowel movements! No reward system, consequence or bribe was big enough to keep my 4 year old son from pooping in his pants...every day. For over a year.

Then just as I gave up the battle, my son comes home from school and says to me "Mama, I'm not gonna poop in my pants anymore."

Halleluja! Miracles do happen! So I say, "That is great news sweetie! So why have YOU decided not to poop in your pants anymore?"

"Mama, I don't want to be Luca Poopy Pants anymore. The girls say I am vies (dirty). Mama, I don't want to be vies."

I couldn't believe my ears! First I wanted to cry, how dare these little bullies say such things to my baby but then came the anger. So for the past YEAR I worried myself day and night trying to figure out how to solve this most annoying problem and a group of 4 year old still-in-training-panties little girls say a few words and its solved. Noooooo, couldn't be...peer pressure in pre-school? I don't remember worrying what anyone said to me in pre-school. The only thing we cared about was who got to be the Mama when we played house. My god he is only 4, what is gonna happen in high school when he has a face full of zits and a body full of teenage hormones? God help me. Well, after I got over my frustration I thought ohhh it will only last a few days...

Nope that was two weeks ago, and no massive blowouts in the dino drawers! Just a skid mark or two...which I am fine with that after a year of shoveling s*it! But I am not fine with the fact that Mama has officially lost her little man!