If you (a poem of sorts about potty-training).
If You (Seven Days of Potty-Training)
01
If you go poop, poop on the potty, we’ll get you a gift.
02
A glass of water, perhaps? A cup of coconut milk and a cracker; a cookie, chocolate oat milk and a cookie or five perhaps.
03
If you poop in the potty, and we’re not desperate you know, we’ll give you a hug, a big hug like a bug in a rug, and a toy or two too, plus a whole cake and a loaf of bread warm-baked from a grandmother or two.
04
If you poop on the potty, we’ll go on a date for ice cream, just you and us and a carful of giddy kids, maybe we’ll pick up milkshakes en route without the lids, and we’ll sip and we’ll slurp and burp til we’re at the parlor, the ice place where we’ll stack up an empty cone for you with nine flavors to fill up the space…if you go poop on the potty.
05
Okay okay okay, if you poop on the potty, we’ll go to a movie or three, maybe we’ll road trip to climb a giant Sequoia tree, we could swing by a store and get a bunny perhaps, or look at places to visit on one of your favorite maps, or should we make you take another forty-two naps, perhaps? If you go poop on the potty, good things will happen I’m certain, just please don’t confuse toilet paper and mum’s new bedroom curtain. Just please use the potty for your poop!
06
Alright, deep breath on Day 6, my emotions are a blended plentiful mix and I’m up to my head in despair and my patience went to Russia or somewhere near there, so please, I can scream and shriek and promise and vow, but please please, your pile of diapers is worse than a diarrhea-dealing Watusi cow! We just need you to use the potty. Poop in the potty!
07
You pooped! And you didn’t poop in your diaper! Yeah, no way, hey hey way to go! I knew we were wise to upscale the prize, we expected you’d rise and you rose, this occasion calls for a - whoa, whoa, whoa, oh no…
…you’re not on the potty, and you got no diaper, and I’m your bottom-wiper, so, where, oh where, did you go, oh no, where did you poop, dear child, tell me, the wild?
No, no, you’re in here, and let’s check the porcelain bowl, nope, nothing bottom of that hole, how about the other one, didja try out another bathroom for poops and fun? Nah, nah nope nope, please, I hope…
I hope to not see what I’m seeing, I’d rather be seeing peeing than seeing what I’m seeing, and what I’m seeing is a brownish mess of something by the door, smeared on the floor, oh…there’s more,
it appears at your core you’ve made up your mind that you’ll not be persuaded or dissuaded on the schedule of others, the bothers and frustrations and impatience of another’s, and maybe there’s a lesson learned from some of us here,
When we look in the mirror, that the prizes and gifts and cajoling and pleading,
may not be exactly what you’re currently needing,
maybe the patience to wait, and let lie our irritation infernal,
and give you the time for your organs internal
to figure out the best time for your digestional calendar and mode of excretion
maybe it’s us that’ll let our plans for your schedule reach depletion,
We like who you are, even your diapered smelly bottomed round rear
So take your time, we’ll keep you around and fairly near, our mild wild child dear.
No prizes no threat
No yelling if your bedsheets get wet
We’ll try to be kind and love you a lot,
and someday, someday maybe, your poop will go in the pot.
more poems and rhymes below
