Wipe Me!

by Patti


Potty training for S was a pretty non-existent affair. We basically bought one of those cute little training toilets, plopped it in the bathroom, and told her to use if she felt like it.

As a result, S wore diapers up until a few months after her 3rd birthday. One day, she just simply took it off and said, “I don’t wanna wear diapers anymore”, and that was that.

I don’t know if it’s because she wore diapers for longer than some, but it took her quite some time to catch on to the whole wiping situation. For years after she stopped wearing diapers, I would hear a “MO-OM! WIPE ME!” every time she was done doing her thing. And every time I heard her demanding little “WIPE ME!” I would almost always be in the middle of doing something completely and totally non-conducive to wiping somebody’s butt. But then again – what the hell is conducive to wiping somebody’s butt?

Each time I heard her command, I would enter to find her not on the toilet, but waiting for me in a literally teepee-like position, her hands flat on the ground, her pants around her ankles, her bare butt pointing straight up to the heavens. If her butt had its own choir it would have been shouting the Hallelujah Chorus.

S was never a convenient public bathroom-user. If we were in a restaurant, she would inevitably get the urge to poop the SECOND the plate I had been hungrily waiting for hit the table. It was as if the plate had a little alarm on its bottom that triggered S’s own bottom, because literally EVERY SINGLE TIME the plate touched the table, she would pipe up, “I have to caca!” And caca-ing for her was never an in-and-out deal; no, it was the kind of deal that would mean my getting back to the table when everybody was already leaned back with their pants unbuttoned and satisfied smiles on their faces.

At least at home I could leave her in the bathroom with a pile of books and let her take her sweet time doing her business. My only job was to swoop in and wipe on command.

One day, when she was already nearly 6 years old, we went shopping at the mall with Cathy and her girls. We were in the Gap trying on some clothes, and S needed to use the bathroom. Being that she was almost 6, I was trying to encourage her to be a little more independent in her bathroom duties (or is it doodies? Bad? Sorry!). The bathroom was one of those one-toilet bathrooms, so, seeing that it was just a few feet away from the dressing room, and figuring it would be another 11-hour pooping affair, I coaxed her to go in on her own while I took the opportunity to finish trying on some outfits. Cathy offered to stand by the door, and S reluctantly went in. I don’t know if it’s because S was in there all alone – because we all know how many monsters lurk inside toilets – but she hit a pooping speed world record, and before I could even zip up the pants I was trying on, I heard it: “MO-OM! WIPE ME!”

Cathy called out to me that she would handle it (only the best of friends offer to wipe the ass of a kid other than their own), and as I rushed to get back into my own clothes, I wondered why the hell my kid couldn’t poop this fast when my dinner was waiting, or the climax of the movie I’d been watching was finally happening, or I myself had to poop.

Suddenly I heard Cathy laugh out loud. I opened the dressing room door and looked down the little hallway towards the bathroom. Cathy had opened the door to help S, and from the dressing room, I had a perfect view straight to my daughter’s naked butt. There it was, vaulted to the flourecent light heavens, jubilantly singing the Hallelujah Chorus, patiently waiting to be wiped.