... and pay the lady

Tonight, folks, after two hours of him jack-in-a-boxing in and out of bed, I bribed my son to sleep. It was not without its amusing moments.

'If you go to sleep, tomorrow we can go for ice-cream!'

'From the ice cream van!'

'Yes, we'll have ice cream from the ice cream van. What else shall we do?'

'Go to the park!'

'Yes, good idea, we can go to the park. What else would you like to do?'

'Get some money!'

'OK...... what else can we do?'

'Pay the lady'

'Aha.... but what else can we do?'

'Buy a white ice-cream'

'I see. So we get some money, go to the park, find the ice-cream van, pay the lady and buy a white ice-cream'

'Yeth'

'What else can we do?'

'Buy a yellow ice cream.'

poop poop - all aboard!!

Hello everyone and thank you all for your submissions to this, my first (and potentially only) go at hosting a carnival. It's been a big job and at points I've really had to strain to get this one out but I've finally produced the goods. Ba dum dum.

er... ok. So, If you've not potty trained a child in your life then these stories will make you either smug or terrified - so read at your own risk. I'd like to thank everyone who submitted stories for this, I think I've included you all - if I've left you out, let me know and I'll edit you in; these are just all too good to leave out.

I would like to start this carnival off with a guest post from Jennie over at Copenhagen Follies. She has posted perhaps the shortest poo story ever, here and has sent me the following tput outo get us all in the mood:

Jennie says: Last year, when we took the kids to France by train, Dante was 2 and Halfdan was 6 mos at the time. We were quite careful not to run out of diapers, buying them along the way. We started out buying two different sizes to accomodate them both, and after the first week we made it easier by just buying one size – Halfdan was quite chubby, and Dante was getting a little slender in comparison, so it made life less complicated.

Somehow though, on the last leg home from Paris to Hamburg, we ran low. At Hamburg Station we barely had time to look for a kiosk to buy new ones before we had to catch our train/ferry connection to Copenhagen. We hoped for the best, and forged ahead. On the train somewhere in northern Germany, Halfdan did a do, so to speak. We rummaged through the diaper bag – no dice. My purse – no dice. Even in the big bag with all our clothing, etc., we couldn’t find one measly little diaper to change our baby with. Mikael and I looked at each other, searching for some magic formula, but there was only one solution left. I gave Mikael specific orders on what to do. The poor man took our sweetpea into the miniscule bathroom without a changing table, managed to scrape off as much poo as he could, deposit it, cover the damaged diaper with a bit of toilet paper, and hoped for the best. We made it to Copenhagen without further incident, but have been very stringent on the diaper front since then.

OK Jen, thanks for that - has anyone else ever had to re-use a pooey nappy? OK, just me then.

And now for the carnival. I have to tell you in advance that you need to have finished your dinner to prepare for what's coming. Some of these will make you cringe while others are likely to make you lose your tea through your nose laughing. I've tried to label them all 'eugh' or 'ha ha' just to warn you in advance but they are, I have to say, all pretty damn funny.

I am starting this off with an 'article' from the doyen of the subject: Potty Mummy from The Potty Diaries who has created this guide post for all of us out there: A different kind of Carnival. Potty Mummy is definitely the pack leader here and she handily provides links to other poo stories so that you will be able to surf poo for days to come... just what you always wanted! Yay!

Next up is Emily over at Maternal Tales from the South Coast who is the queen of poo stories,. If she hadn't have sent me this post I would have linked to it anyway as it is one of the funniest poo stories I've read and I think you should all start there to get you in the mood. The nappy bucket overfloweth when it comes to Emily however and she has sent three, count 'em, three 'ha ha' poo stories and you can find the others here and finally over here.

Ha ha!! I fooled you with the last one - definitely an 'eugh' story.

Tara over at Sticky Fingers has sent two stories, both in the 'ha ha' camp
this one, the moment every parent dreads in a restaurant and then this one, short and a bit fruity!! And as we know, most fruit is guaranteed to get the best, or perhaps the worst, out of our offspring...

Emily over at Brit in Bosnia has achieved the master-stroke, both 'eugh' and 'haha' in one story... it starts out a nice little potty-training story and then has a kicker in the final line here. She's also sent me this little gem which is actually nothing really to do with poo but I tell you, between the post and the comments I felt a LOT better about the little accident the spud had on the rug this morning...

Lisa at Boondock Ramblings has been dithering about potty training for ages now, claiming that her little one 'just isn't ready'... here is the proof - poo in a church, not sure if this is waaaay more embarrassing than the next entry or not to be honest but the phrase 'Daddy, wipe me!' has got to be one of the most memorable of all.

Dee over at Mummadiddee who is, for the purposes of this post actually Iota Manhattan from Not Wrong Just Different has posted this story about a supermarket poo. Ah yes, the dreaded cry of 'Mummy I done a poo' as fellow shoppers recoil in disgust. We recently had a very similar moment in the crowded queue at customs in Stansted airport... not only did our little boy smell to high heaven but sadly there was no disguising what was peeping over the back of his trousers...

Jen from Rants and Raves gives us a potty training story - low on 'eugh' but high on the old empathy factor scale here; weeks of failure and he uses the potty at Grandma's...

This classic from Suzanna at Thames Valley Mums resonates particularly with me as I too have a home office, although so far the spud has yet to announce my toileting habits to clients...

Iota, posting this time as herself on her own blog has this great poo story here, which she created just for this carnival. The start alone is enough to make a frustrated potty-trainer feel relaxed, the end is another 'haha' moment.

Grit over at Grit's DayGrit's Day has posted us this visit to a sewage farm which is educational because if nothing else it tells us how to make our own poo in a bowl withouth all the messy straining about.

Amy over at and 1 more means four posts this 'Eugh' story about the combination of potty training one child while another is crawling... This one is about the worst I can imagine happening and makes my own experiences on the matter pale in comparison. With four kids, Amy is an expert at this lark but even experts have slippage sometimes...

Here's a good one from Steffi over at Mummy Do That whose daughter has decided to potty train herself against her mother's wishes - the upshot, however, is the usual poo on the floor

Here's one from Carol at New Mummy - this one isn't funny ha ha or even particularly 'eugh' but it illustrates exactly the sort of thing us parents have to deal with, loving our babies, poo and all. She doesn't say exactly how many nappies were filled during her child's illness but it sounds like nappy changing was a full time job. Here you go!

Liz over at Living With Kids has an 'eugh' story for us all that for a change doesn't actually involve baby poo. It does however involve both poo and a baby - and if your brain isn't going mad trying to work it out, here you go!

Finally a late entry from Laura over at Are We Nearly There Yet? - very funny and the title alone is worth the visit - so here you go, The Morning Log

Thank you everyone for a very amusing two weeks. I will spend tomorrow travelling about letting you all know that it's finally dropped and if I've missed you out, just drop me a line.

A carnival of poo...

I have maundered on a lot over time about my son padding around our appartment. Now, however, he is a little boy; and little boys, it turns out, do not pad at all; rather, they clank. Clutching a nest of toy cars and airplanes, the spud cannot trust us enough to leave them unattended even for a second and is forever toting more cars than he can carry. He cannot do even so much as a quick wee wee without dropping bits of cast metal into the loo, the bath, under his father's feet, it's ridiculous.

We have, however, had progress on pooing in the loo - cars or no cars - and to that end, I am celebrating the hopeful end of all poo stories on this blog by inviting any interested parties to send me your favourite poo stories.

I know you have them. Lurking in your archives. If I get enough responses I'll publish links back in a full-on, glorious, poo-story-dump in a couple of weeks time... what do you think?

ps, I dedicate this post to my brother because he loves poo stories SO MUCH!