The Boy Who Cried "Poop"

It's been about a year since we began practicing Elimination Communication, and what an interesting journey it's been. There have been ups and downs, but at the end of the day, it's all about the COMMUNICATION and not the-- Yeah, yeah, you get it. And as far as the communication is concerned, he's getting pretty good about letting me know when he needs to go. Sometimes, he uses hand signs to alert me. Sometimes, he uses sounds. Sometimes, he uses telepathy. And sometimes, he does this:
.
The boy strips. Strips! And guess what? It works! Benjamin knows that the moment Mommy hears the telltale sound of Velcro being pried apart, she'll come a-running to whisk him off to the potty. Once he's on the potty, Benjamin will usually proceed to do his business with no further incident; however, he's realized that even if he doesn't really need to go, ripping off his pants will result in facetime with Mommy. So what has he started to do? You guessed it: the boy now takes his pants off to get my attention. It feels like I'm back in college.
.
Now that I've grown wise to his devious ways, I'm suspicious each time he tries to get my attention. Don't get me wrong: when I hear him dropping trou, I'll still check to make sure that he doesn't really need to use the toilet. But if I've experienced several false alarms in a row, THEN I'll ignore him. Unfortunately, three false alarms doesn't always mean that the fourth will be one, too.

Yes, that is a pants-less Boo staring sheepishly at the wall on which he just urinated. As you can probably guess, this accident was preceded by three false alarms, all of which summoned me to his side. So when he finally sincerely tried to tell me that he needed to use the toilet, I ignored him. Hence the pee-stained wall.
And it gets worse.

That's poop. In the closet. The poo has been pixelated for your own protection. The other thing you can't see in this picture is that the closet is right next to the restroom that Benjamin most frequently uses. Truth be told, I did hear him banging on the restroom door right before I discovered the dookie. But in my defense, this was after the aforementioned three false alarms. So what's an exhausted, frustrated Mommy to do? Ignore her child. And what's the child to do? Find the next closest place in which to drop a deuce.


When I told Vince what had happened, his reply (after howling with laughter) was, "Did you rub his nose in it and tell him, 'No"?" I told him that I did no such thing because (a) Benjamin is not a dog, and (b) he seemed to feel pretty bad about it on his own. I mean, doesn't he look pretty sad and ashamed?

NAH!