If you like to shit in peace, don’t have children. I was in there the other day taking care of business when both my sons came in. They like to make fun of me for the way I sit on the toilet. Ha ha ha, they say, Papa dumps like this, and they slouch forward and put their elbows on their thighs and interlock their fingers. The older of the two informs us when *he* poops he leans way back and watches it come out. That’s disgusting I say, valsalva, keeping eye contact. I look over at the little one sitting on the side of the tub. He’s got a big smile on his face. What do you do, I ask. “When I’m done, I just check if there’s poop in my butt,” he says. “I bend over real far like this and check.” His face is practically in his ass crack; he has a forward fold the most avid yogic practitioner would envy. “Then I put my head in the toilet and look at it,” he says. They want to look at mine, they say. It always looks like beets they say. I turn on the bidet and they duck for cover, then I wipe and get up and look in the toilet and they yell eww and run away.

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