So listen. I have a completely precious 2 and a half year old who I affectionately call, “Monkey”. And he’s like, a total genius. And I’m not even making that up just because I’m his mom. He can read and spell upwards of 100 words, and he’s generally perfectly behaved. This is a kid whose cry I don’t think I would even recognize because I rarely hear him complain about anything. This is a kid who minds us like 98% of the time. This is a kid who ASKS to go to bed each night, and then falls asleep the moment his perfect little head hits the pillow. I’m serious!
So here’s what happened last week. My husband picks him up from his sitter’s house, and is told that while he and his three little daycare buddies were sitting at their kid-sized lunch table, happily munching on chicken fingers and fries, our little monkey picked up a french fry in one hand. With the other hand, he reached into the back of his diaper, grabbed out a big chunk of poo, takes a big whiff of it, says, “Eeew. That’s yucky,” and proceeds to wipe his hand all over the front of his shirt, while gleefully eating the french fry.
If that’s not gross enough, today he decided that at nap time, he would just strip down, take his own (full) diaper off, grab some more poo, and smear it all over his babysitter’s son’s soccerball.
Thankfully, the babysitter thinks this is all kind of hilarious. But as parents, we’re kind of freaking out. We’re already having a totally hellacious time trying to get him potty trained, so the fact that he’s not only NOT potty trained but also using his own fecal matter as fingerpaint is kind of a problem.
Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.
Hello your highness, oh mighty Mocking Queen…
All I have is a cactus but from past experience with little “monkeys” like your (well, not exactly ones with such high IQ & EQ) I can only give you one hint:
watch him (or warn your sitter) when he’s around other kids, especially smaller ones…
Last time I remember the 2 year old I was taking care of (couldn’t read but could speak 2 languages with different accents!) went very quietly to his baby sister’s crib, climbed inside (they are most dangerous the more quiet they are!!!), opened her diaper (maybe wanting to copy me or his mom)… then saw all that nice brown material and couldn’t control the little artist inside him:
painted her, her whole crib, blankies, EVERYTHING with sh*t,
THEN as if it wasn’t enough, he thought she looked hungry!
You get the point.
Mom goes inside thinking “mmm… too quiet in there…” and almost passed out from the smell and the view, especially from noting them both smiling there all happy and innocent, the baby still chewing and all.
Other than that, good luck with your little one! Like with everything kids related: it’s all a phase!
Greatest. Story. EVER!!! I feel so much more normal now.
Thanks!
I have tons of those, having been a nanny on the past and growing up on a huuuuge family… but that one was the closest to your… uh… situation….
Luckly that little girl didn’t get hooked up on the taste of what her little brother fed her!
A cousin of mine used to feed snails to his little brother… the best part on that was seeing the crunched shells stuck between the teeth of the little one.
You’re also lucky your little one doesn’t sleepwalk! We have that in our family and one of us actually too a dump once in the middle of the living room carpet.
Kids… make life so exciting!
This has happened with a few children I know, so rest assured. Thankfully, not with my precious angel, though. He has only pooped on the sitter’s FLOOR once or twice. That’ll teach her not to listen to him when he says he has to go potty!!
Yeah, I’ve been there, too…went to check on the youngin’ during ‘naptime’….apparently it had devolved into ‘paint your white crib brown’ time. just looked up at me, grinned, and held out a handful, as though he needed assistance. I geeked out so bad.
oh, and the day he was born, he decided to spray his first poopy all over me, from my chest down to my foot, while I was changing his first peepee.
See? I can relate. Hooray for me.