Journalist Sophie Heawood, writing at the Guardian‘s Comment Is Free (and Worth Every Penny), pens a wistful ode to her two-year-old daughter’s enthusiasm for taking really huge dumps:
My daughter has recently become obsessed with the size of her poos – and they are all big, according to her, whether they look to me like they came out of a greedy Jack Russell or a sickly church mouse. “Big poo, Mummy,” she says, in awed tones – awed by her own bottom. “Big poo…”
I’m so in love with her big poos that I can’t bear the idea of them stopping. Of her realising that they aren’t things you want to show off about. Of the day when somebody makes it clear to her, whether by accident or design, that sweet little girls aren’t supposed to describe the massive steaming achievements cruising out of their bums, propelled by the wonders of peristalsis, into the marvels of the plumbing system. That curly little blondes such as she should desire to be small, and contained, and clean, and dress up as pink princesses. And shut up about their dirty selves; already, enough.
I dread the day those whopper turds have got to go…
A friend told me yesterday that her four-year-old announced she had done a poo “like a brown dolphin”. Another friend remembers her little sister sitting on a potty and saying, “Look! It is a beautiful golden sun!” before they all waved it goodbye, discussing the beautiful sunset as they flushed it down the loo. I know I must, but I am resistant. I do not want to flush my daughter’s beautiful sunsets down the loo.
Nor should you. This is why we have things bronzed.
Seriously though, it’s a completely ordinary biological function. It’s silly to make little girls feel ashamed of such a natural, inevitable everyday process. Poop with pride, girls. Get excited about excretion! And then their proud mothers should write columns about it in national newspapers and we can all have a good laugh, because poopie.
The dolphin and the sunset are nice girl-powered metaphors. How about calling it “lady gravy”? Would that one work? “Sweetie pies”? Just throwing this stuff out there. No need to look at me like that, I’m trying to help.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go do my business in the little boys’ room. And I will thank you not to ask me about it afterward! I’ll gladly tell you all the details without any prompting.
(Hat tip: Hot Air, appropriately enough)