I’m drying off from my weekly shower. The big boys are still quietly conquering Xbox Lego Batman in the TV room, and Sam has stayed put in the toy room, per my implicit instructions. I can hear him talking to himself, making vrooooming engine noises and psshhhhhhhhhhh crashing noises as he creates magnificent wrecks on the sunny carpet.

I pad into our bedroom, dress, sit at my vanity, and begin sectioning my hair to dry it. I hear the metal of the baby gate strain and click against its frame as Sam presses himself, belly first, into it.

“Muuuuuuuuum-Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum!”

“Hey Sam!”

“I haf-ta poop!”

“Awesome! Let’s get to the potty!”

I jump up and prepare to give him a lights-n-sirens escort to the bathroom.

I thought Sam was going to be our gifted and talented student when it came to potty-training, but what began as a strong, promising stream of a start a year ago, has morphed into a big bait-n-switch joke. If Sam is wearing anything on his lower body, he treats it like a diaper. It makes no difference if that thing is absorbent or not…meant to hold human waste, or not. He is just as happy to make a poop sling out of his big-boy underpants as he is his Pull-Ups, as he is his diaper. I’ve gone so far as to run some baby PSYOPS, trying to make him empathize with Woody and Buzz, who have the unfortunate housing assignment on the back of Sam’s underpants. Oh, how SAD Woody and Buzz would be if you peed or pooped on them! Poor Woody and Buzz! Sam cares not a lick for the comfort or sanitary state of Woody and Buzz.

However, if we leave him pantsless, that seems to serve as an effective cue to use the potty when he has to go. It’s not very practical for anywhere but in the house and it’s a bit awkward if he runs to the door and gives the UPS dude the glass-pressed weenie treatment, but it’s the best we have right now.

When I reach Sam at the gate, there is no urgency about him. No pigeon-toed dancing around…no hand cupped behind his bum. And the devil is looking at me through his crystal blue eyes.

“I have a poop,” he repeats.

“You HAVE a poop or you HAVE TO poop?” I ask for clarification, because, big difference. Absent is the trademark Michelin-plant-ablaze smell that accompanies Sam’s offerings, so I’m not worried.

He holds out his hand to me and I can see a plastic, toy hamburger that came with a play food set that the boys got for Christmas one year peeking out from between his fingers. I play along.

“Oh! Is that your poop?” I hold out my hand. He grins, pleased that I’m playing with him, and dumps the hamburger into my palm. And the plastic hamburger is unnaturally warm. And sticky. And round instead of flat. And HOLY GOD!

I cannot convey in words how strong the human reflex is to get rid of a handful of warm feces. Somehow, I don’t scream or drop it or throw it or throw up. I grab Sam’s non-shitted-up hand with my non-shitted-up hand and drag him, lights-n-sirens, to the bathroom.

“DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!!! JESUS, SAM!!!”

We scrub our hands until they are shiny-pink and soft, me hunched over him from behind at the sink, controlling his hands like a puppeteer with OCD who just found her little marionette showering in a truck-stop urinal. Him, looking up at me, nodding solemnly as I describe the evils of playing with poo.

Then, I put a diaper on Sam and put him back in the toy room…and I take another shower.

Yesterday, I noticed the late afternoon light falling across our opened front door in a particularly appealing way, so I quickly went to get my camera and tripod. I set up the shot, adjusted the camera, and snapped a series of pictures of the empty doorway. But when I look at this one, I swear there is what appears to be a little boy standing behind the beveled glass.

I think I’ll ask Sam. He was right beside me as I was setting up the camera. In fact, he insisted on looking through the viewfinder at least twice, and at one point, he even went around to the front of the camera and pressed his cheek and eye against the lens. He was also playing with the tripod some.

Maybe he saw something.

Dada: “What were you doing?”

Liam: “We were fighting Sam!”

Dada: “Do you think I want you fighting Sam?”

Liam: “I wasn’t the one fighting him. I was the one blocking him so Nate could get him.”