The Mr. Potato Head Saga

Every now and then I worry like any good Dad does that my boys are acting too effeminate or that they’ve spent too much time playing with our friend’s kids, who are almost all girls. I worried when David asked me to paint his playhouse pink, and I worried when he told me that he was going to marry Graham, his brother, but in those times it helps to remember the things they do that are “all boy.”

The following Mr. Potato Head story that just unfolded before my teary eyes is one of those “all boy” stories. My wife and I were sitting in the living room watching tolerating Toy Story for the 41,589th time, which of course prompted the Mr. Potato Head’s to be brought out. As you probably know Mr. Potato Head has a flap in the back that opens so that you can store all of the extra parts inside the toy when you tidy it up (yeah right, like that’ll happen).

Graham, my 2 year old who is in the process of dealing with life’s first big challenge, potty training, opened up the flap and had an epiphany. His eyes got all big and his mouth hung open momentarily before he exclaimed “hey look,” pointing at the hole “so that he can go poop!” David joined in with his Mr. Potato Head, and the two of them spent the better part of 20 minutes dumping (pun intended) stuff out of Mr. Potato Head’s poop chute.

Playing the part of the toilet in this fun game was our big brown chair. Mr. Potato Head would squeeze out his contents and then he too would be summarily dumped (tee hee) into the “toilet.” Then they would “flush” the “toilet” complete with flushing sounds and brush everything from the chair onto the floor. I assume that this was everything going down the drain. I’ll never look at that chair the same way again.

The game resulted in a cacophony of side-splittingly-funny quotes; “Graham, my bottom broke,” “David, that won’t fit in his bottom,” “OK, don’t forget to wipe,” and plenty others that I’ve either forgotten or were simply too uncouth for publication.

So the good news is that my fears about my boys being too effeminate have been assuaged for the time being. I don’t think girls play those kind of games do they? To be fair those Mr. Potato Heads do look like turds.

And thus it came to pass that Graham's Mr. Potato Head was potty trained before he is. I’m still laughing about it, but that’s because I’m going to put Mr. Potato Head in their backpacks next time they go to Grandma’s house so that I can imagine my Mom playing ‘Mr. Potato Head Goes Potty’ on their fine living room furniture.