Kid's Stuff

I included lots of jokes and “fun facts” in Waking Up Dry and would like to do the same thing on the website. Most of this material will be about bedwetting or the urinary system, but I may occasionally slip in some general stuff about the body.

Q—What did one toilet say to the other toilet?
A—You look a little flushed.

A sound sleeper
One of my patient’s slept so soundly that she fell out of bed one night and did not wake up! Her parents found her the following morning sleeping next to the bed hugging one of her stuffed animals.

When do children learn what the word “urine” means?
If you’ve read Waking Up Dry, you already know that “urine” is the grownup word for pee. I did some research in my office to find out at what age children learn this word. It turns out that most kids do not know what urine means until they are 9 or 10 years of age! (Bonus question: Do you know what “bowel movement” means?)

Let’s play ball
One of my patients told me a funny story that happened at a sleepover when he was 9 years old. When Eric woke up in the morning, he put his wet Pull-Up in the trash. Unfortunately, his dog found the Pull-Up and started dragging it around the house. Eric wrestled the Pull-Up from the dog and tossed it to one of his friends. This led to a game of catch that went on for 10 minutes before Eric’s mom found out what they were doing. No one teased Eric about using a Pull-Up, and he and his friends had a good laugh at breakfast.

101 uses for animal bladders

Balloons were invented in 1824. Before that time, people sometimes filled animal bladders with air and used them as toys.
American Indians used every part of an animal—the meat was used for food, the skin was used for clothing, and the hair was used for ropes and clothing. Some tribes even used animal bladders as drinking containers.
A bagpipe is a wind instrument that forces air through wooden pipes to make music. When bagpipes were first invented, the “bags” were sometimes made of animal bladders.
A slang term for football is “pigskin.” The origin of this word goes back hundreds of years ago when balls were actually made from pig bladders.

Potties in space
Alan Shepard was the first American astronaut to be launched into space. His mission was a suborbital flight that took place on May 5, 1971 in the Freedom 7 spacecraft. According to the movie, The Right Stuff, Shepard had to pee minutes before his rocket ship was about to take off. He told the mission commander about his predicament because he couldn’t hold it anymore and it was too late for him to leave the ship. After a quick discussion with NASA scientists, the mission commander told Shepard he could pee inside his space suit without causing any problems. (Today’s spacecraft are equipped with special toilets that use suction to work in gravity-free environment. If astronauts are away from the ship for an extended period of time, they wear diapers inside their spacesuits.)

Three ways to pee
You may find this hard to believe, but doctors have three different words that mean “to pee.” The words are urinate (YUR-in-ate), void (voyd), and micturate (MIK-choo-rate). While most parents know the first two words, hardly anyone knows what the last one means. So the next time you’re eating dinner, ask if you can be excused because you need to micturate. After you enjoy the blank look on everyone’s face, you can tell them what the word means.

Let’s go for a swim
During your lifetime, you will make approximately 10,000 gallons of urine. That’s enough to fill a small swimming pool!

That’s gross! (Or should I say, Gross Fact?)
Some non-traditional healers tell people to drink urine as a way to treat certain diseases.

True or False
The white, gooey stuff that birds drop all over the place consists of pee and poop mixed together.

True
Although birds have kidneys, they do not have bladders. Therefore the waste that the kidneys make travels down a tube and mixes with poop in the intestine. So the next time you can’t get to the bathroom right away, be glad you’re not a bird and can hold things in for a while. (See page 57 in the book for a Fun Fact about how much urine certain mammals make.)

Tricks & Jokes
Ask one of your friends to spell “pig” backwards and then say the word “funny”. When he does, it should come out, “G-I-P funny.” (If your friend doesn’t get it, say, “Gee, I pee regular!”)

Two 8-year-old girls met after school to talk about their upcoming spring break.
“Why don’t you come to the beach with me and my family?” one of them asked.
“I’d like to,” her friend answered, “but I wet the bed at night so I’m nervous about taking trips with my friends.”
“How often do you wet the bed?” the first girl asked.
“About once a week.”
“That’s simple,” her friend answered. “Just wet your bed the night before we leave.”

Poetry Corner
One of my friends likes poetry and wrote the following limerick when I told him about Waking Up Dry.

There was a young fellow named Meade
Who neglected to wake when he peed.
He slept like a log,
With his head in a fog,
Till his mom brought this book home to read.