“Daddy, Come Wipe My Butt!”
Keith | March 24My Devil is going on four years old next month, and has been potty trained for some time now. He usually has his pants and Underoos around his ankles long before he reaches the toilet, which can be a little awkward in public; but it’s fine, he’s cute. At home he pees every seven or eight minutes, and luckily most of his man-stream finds its way into the bowl. He hasn’t wet his bed in months, proving he has this whole peeing thing down to a science. Nonetheless, I dread the road trip to the beach we plan to take this summer. We’re definitely renting a car.
Yes, he craps too (he stopped pooping two years ago), but for some reason he really sucks at wiping. No matter how many times we’ve tried to show him proper technique, he still occasionally ends up looking like he holds illegal drag races in his undies. We drop off our laundry at a Korean laundromat here in Queens, and I’m cetain that as sincerely nice as they are, they’re talking about my nasty son. And I don’t blame them.
Recently, we decided to be more hands-on in teaching him how to clean his little brown booty. The problem is that now he’s become dependent upon our so-called teaching, which lately resembles two parents wiping ass. Let’s just say my boy puts the “turd” in Saturday when at 6 am, after a long week of my wife and I working in non-profit hell, he shouts from the bathroom “Daddy (or Mommy), I need you to come wipe my butt!” I usually shout back something clever like “wipe your own butt,” prompting my wife to tell me to stop yelling at him (huh?), then she goes to help him. If we don’t help him he’ll wander into our bedroom naked from the waist down to make his plea in person, forcing both of us out of bed to tend to his royal rump.
Like I always say, you know you love a person when you are willing to wipe their butt pro bono.
My blog entry for 10/10/06 is short enough to paste in as an entire comment:
This wasn’t in the handbook…
No one ever told me that as a mother, one day I would be sitting where I should surely have some privacy and a four year old would come out of the other bathroom, down the hall and into my bathroom with her shorts and panties down at her ankles. No one told me she would turn around, bend over, spread her butt cheeks and ask, “Did I wipe very good, Mommy?” No one told me this. And by the way, she hadn’t.
I feel your pain… I feel your pain…
HOLY shit…I could have wrote that. Same deal: Boy, four years old, short arms. “Moooom/Daaaaaad come wipe my bum!” Every morning at 8:30 like clockwork. Amazing.
HeeHee–Underoos! Wow, that brought back memories.
I loved this post. Hilarious—on so many levels. :)
If it makes any of you feel any better… I managed to con my friends into wiping my butt well into kindergarten. I just though it was gross and dirty…
SO… funny! I have so been there too. I think it still remains on my list of the worst wake up calls I have had and had more than once. I am not sure whether forcing “him” to learn to wipe and letting the undies show of the stuff is the better way to go or doing it for him. He is almost five now so I have resorted to cottenelle wipes so he can have a little help. Now we have tried them, maybe we all should use them. I mean how good can toilet paper really clean? Love your whit!
Laura
Ah! Something to look forward to. I have a hard enough time wiping my own ass sometimes…
When I was a kid my poor parents had me trained to yell out, “I’m Finished!” One day Grandma, who didn’t know the code, was taking care of me…apparently, it took a good 20 minutes of “Grandma, I’m fiiiinnnniiiissshhhheeeeddddd!” before I was rescued from the cold toilet monster. 20 minutes on the pot, 20+ years worth of material for the family. At least I know my SO loves me since he stayed around even after Dad told that story over a nice dinner.
Damn, that’s weird. It’s like we’re raising the same kid. My boy says the same thing — word for word: “Daddy, come wipe my butt!” If I’m lucky, he might pose it as a question: “Daddy, can you wipe my butt?” The sad thing is, I just do it. I don’t even wonder anymore about when he might be able to take care of this on his own, I’m just glad that the crap is getting into the toilet. I wonder who’ll wipe his butt when he starts kindergarten?
I had the same problem. I thought that I was the only suffering from wiping a 4 four-year old behind. My little boy, who’s now 9, would call me until all hours of the night to wipe his little stinky bottom. Boys was I glad when he decided that he was a big boy and didn’t need me to wipe anymore. Thank goodness for small favors.
You don’t really need or want that lifestyle, it might hurt y’all slowly more…….Just tell him you
don’t wanna repeat something your not too proud of z7uas.