What is the Deal with Poop?

I seriously want to know. You would think that by child #4, I'd have all the potty training answers. Well, I don't, and it frustrates the hell out of me.

You see, we've now had the "poop issue" with 3 out of our 4 children. I started potty training Joey a couple of months after he turned 2 and after a couple of frustrating weeks, he'd pretty much mastered peeing on the potty. Poop was a whole other matter. That child would not poop on the potty, and he didn't care if it was in his underwear. He would play and go about his business (literally) with a lump in his pants and he DID NOT CARE. What do you do with that?!?! A few times he fooled me into thinking we were finally on our way by going on the potty several days in a row, only to then revert right back to stinking up his pants. AHHH!!! This went on for A YEAR after the initial potty training. Finally, when we went to Florida to visit Shaun's parents, we had a break-through. Joey became known as "nature boy" because he ran around naked most of the time. I figure since he'd been potty training so long, he must have had some sense that without pants on, he had no choice, and from then on he pooped on the potty.

Alec was the only one who did both around the same time. In fact, if memory serves, he actually pooped in the potty more consistently first. But then we had issues with Kyle, too. And now....Lauren. I have heard so many times that girls are easier to potty train than boys. When we first started out, I thought it must be true. We had been familiarizing her with the potty even before her 2nd birthday, sitting her on it, etc., but had not started actively potty training. Because we had also just taken the "flower" (pacifier) away, I thought I'd wait a little bit until she was over that before embarking on a big change like potty training. Well, she showed me up and actually initiated potty training herself a month or two after she turned 2. AWESOME!!! None of the boys had done such a thing and I bragged about her every chance I got.

That was last August or September. She trained pretty quickly and rarely has an accident, but she is still in a diaper at night and WILL NOT poop on the potty. We have had some successes here and there over the past months, but nothing has stuck. She will usually do it in her diaper in the morning, or sometimes even her underwear. I was putting her in panties for naptime for a little while there, but if she hasn't done a poop, I've been putting her in a diaper again because it is generally much more heinous to clean up an underwear poop mess. I don't know what to do with her, I just don't get it. Why is pooping on the potty such a big ordeal??? She's not constipated and, as far as I can tell, not scared of it. I sure wish that after a certain number of children, you earned some kind of elite knowledge that less experienced parents don't get because....WE DESERVE IT!!! I've paid my poop dues, thank you very much.

Maybe getting her exclusively into underwear will help? Because, while she will occasionally do it in her underwear, she does seem to prefer to do it in the diaper (unlike Joey). Either that, or we're hoping to travel to Florida again this summer....