Poop is natural. It is a bit ridiculous to be embarrassed and even revolted by something that is totally normal like poop. That is what the philosopher in my head says. The reality is – get that shit away from me!
Also important to acknowledge, ‘normal’ is a very subjective word, especially when it comes to kiddos on the spectrum. Meaning, the human spectrum cause all kids do some CRAZY stuff!
You may have guessed The Boy Wonder LOVED poop. His poop, dog poop, cat poop, any poop he could get his hands on. And get his hands on he did.
Again, coming from the philosopher in my head, it makes sense. He loves playing in mud as all kids do. When you get mud to certain consistencies it is just like… yeah, you get it. He just couldn’t distinguish between the two like you and I can, which is the fun artistic part of everything.
One particularly awesome day I heard him upstairs making some noise but since I knew where he was I was not worried and kept busy on my laptop getting some work done.
I looked up when he was halfway down the stairs to see he was creating art by smearing something on the wall. Something brown… Something that smelled and aw shit, it was his shit! He was getting some great finger work in there too. Whenever he needed more, he just reached in his diaper and pulled out some more. 
If you put aside the fact it was poop, it was actually pretty cool to see him creating something from his mind and putting it on the wall.
As a good dad should do, I waited until he was finishing up. I can feel you judging. Don’t judge. You have to pick your battles. I mean, he was already pretty far into his fingerprinting and maybe he was the next DaVinci! Why not see what he can do here?
Actually, having been through this before, I knew if I tried to stop him early, there would be a struggle. Struggle meant shit on me! Better to let him finish and just clean up a little more later. Personally, I am not going to battle when shit is in the middle!
Of course, this was a serious problem that we had to shut down quickly and effectively. Not in the story above, but just playing with poop. It should be fairly simple but it’s not. The Boy could not comprehend and connect adverse reactions to things like, ‘I play with poop, I get yelled at. If I keep doing it, I get smacked on the butt’.
Then came the day he discovered the cat’s litter box. How he found it, why he found it I still have no idea. There are two and both are in the bathrooms in our house. One is in a cupboard that is held open a few inches so the cats can get in but the dog cannot. Yes, one of the dogs is a cat poop eater, which makes him have horrible diarrhea all over the carpet. This just gets better and better. My life was surrounded by poop, all the time and you haven’t see the whole story yet!
So, he would sift through the little to find the pieces of poop and squeeze them like play dough in his hands. He would mold them into little shapes and, if they were fresh, they would stick to his hands and he would have to fling his hands to get the sticky stuff off.
You’re grossed out, I know, but it gets worse. Because much of the time we never caught him! So, he would go into the litter box, play with his stinky play dough toys and then leave the bathroom to go off and play with other stuff. Touching the railings, trying to start the TV on the remote getting into the fridge and touching all the food! Now you should be getting the full picture.
Fair warning – don’t let him put his hands on your face.
Again, I feel the judgment but you just have to understand, it is absolutely impossible to keep an eye on him all the time. He was relatively safe in our house as long as he didn’t lick his hands. Sorry, had to bring that visual in for ya. If you have read The Escape Artist, you may have some idea of how hard it was to keep track of him and you have to do 100% of the time. Any small potential for escape or to do damage as The Terrorist or to get into something was always there. There is no way you can keep up your guard all the time. How do you make dinner? If we could have hired a nanny, we would have done it in a heartbeat but that was just not in the cards for our family.
One of the worst days of the year in our house is when we get that first really beautiful spring day where all the snow melts and it goes from the 30’s to the 60’s overnight. The problem is there is no date for it. It comes randomly and can be hard to plan for. Inevitably that day comes without pre-planning and we are caught off guard.
What could be so wrong with that you ask? Well, warm day, melting snow, softening ground with months of dog shit that never got picked up. Now it’s soft too and a LOT of it. Even when you pick it up in the winter, you just never get it all because it gets buried in snow and missed.
It heyday for The Boy. Mud, poop, who cares! He will smear it all over himself, his clothes, his toys.
So no big deal, just haul him inside and wash him down from head to toe and be done with it. He may or may not get back outside but if you have a compatriot, hopefully they get outside to pick up the bigger messes. If not, some kind of major intervention is required so you can take action. Ice cream works every time but that is a last resort kind of thing. We start with a favorite TV show or something, which normally works.
Nevertheless, that is the day the endless poop cycle begins. We have two 80 pound plus dogs. Their poop is big. He used to go right for it and squeeze it between his fingers and toes. You know how hard it is to get poop out from under the toenails and fingernails of an autistic 3 year old who refuses to sit still and cannot follow directions. But it has to be done! I am not sure about the legality of strapping your child to a table in Colorado but no amount of scrubbing will get that shit out. You have to dig for it…
There is a tight poop-picking-up schedule in our house but that is only the battle plan. Battle plans never survive the enemy, as the military says. He finds ways to get into the poop no matter what we do and it is just a matter of cleaning up as few messes as possible.
One day, THE WORST POOP DAY, Cam wanted to play in the car so I let him. It was warm and, naturally, he didn’t have any pants or underwear on just like normal.
He was not potty trained yet and needed to go, so he did. Right in the front seat of Mom’s car. It was very soft, almost diarrhea. I found him playing in it like it was no big deal. See photo right.
The only thing that saved his life that day was that #MomsNotHome.
You can’t really tell but the leather seat is perforated – small little holes to let the cushion breathe. That poop was pushed into the little holes and I had to clean them out one at a time. I cleaned most of it up and then had to go to a car wash and use their high-powered vacuum to get it out. By the time I got there, the poop was mostly dried and the vacuum could not get it out. So I had to get each hole wet and suck the shit out, each time getting a whiff of it. It took hours.
I am happy to say that, for the most part, poop is becoming a thing of the past. He still gets into it but he does not seek it out like he used to. He doesn’t care about it either so he will walk right through it barefoot and not are at all. He hasn’t been in the litter box for quite a while, that we know of anyway. You just never know…
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