Everybody Poops!

Everybody poops. I want you to know that, first and foremost. But I swear to you, my kid has got to poop more than anyone else. She isn't even shy or reserved about it.

Now before you become a mom, the thought of even talking about poop is unheard of... but after you have kids, poop becomes your life. From the day they're born, the doctors and nurses want to know about the poop. What color is it? What is the consistency? How often? How much? You start to get fixated on poop, and you're so happy when the results are favorable.

Recently my love of poop has waned... I use the word love very sparingly and with those fancy finger air quotations because, let's be totally honest... who REALLY loves poop? But just yesterday, Abbey pooped in the bathtub, not once, but twice. The first time she cried out "Mama!" and pointed to 3 little floaters, and I begrudgingly fished them out with a plastic cup, dumped and flushed them, drained and rinsed the tub and refilled it for her... the second time I wasn't so nice. When she did it again, after dinner... she got hosed off, because at that point I was tired and I just didn't have the patience. For those of you who don't think being a mom is a hard job, I challenge you to take my kid for the week... you wouldn't last 3 days.

The next day, her reign of poop continued. She was playing in her room, and things got... how do you say... quiet. "Quiet" with a toddler equals not so good. It's like they know they are doing something they shouldn't be and they don't want to get caught, so they are as sneaky as possible which raises the red flag, but not instantly. You're so happy that the kid stopped crying, screaming, yelling etc for 10 seconds that you don't realize it could be a bad thing until it's too late. I went to check on her because 1. I thought it might be time for a diaper change and 2. she was just too quiet...

Abbey had somehow reached into her poop diaper, grabbed a handful and had smeared it not just all over her hands, but her chest and face too. Including her hair! At this point a few things ran through my head. I knew this was bad, but I was sort of in a frozen state of shock and awe. I tried to reach for her, as she was reaching for me saying "Up mama" but I didn't particularly want poop all over me and my clothes. I was kind of doing this "float like a butterfly" type dance around her, looking for the area of least poop to grab her by, but she kept turning around and following me. I hollered out to my hubby to help... in a kind of last resort, although I knew he would take his time as he's not very good with most things poop related. In the end I grabbed her under her arms in a sort of half handled football hold, and maneuvered the diaper off her in a skill I didn't know I possessed and set her in the tub with one hand, while quickly swiping the toys to the back of the tub. They had seen enough poop shrapnel for the week.

She was visibly pissed, and rightly so, but at least I warmed the water up before hosing her off yet another time in less than 16 hours. I had this sort of cadence in my voice, kind of how Brad Pitt says "What's in the box???" while I asked her why she smeared poop all over her face and how she even managed to do it so skillfully. Even Charlie was impressed.

I would have taken pictures, to show you, cuz I like taking pictures and blogs look better with them, but I doubted very much that anyone wanted to see a 16 month old bathing with a few floaters, or even smeared with it. In the end my common sense won, and no poop shots were taken. Though it would have made for great blackmail for future boyfriends.

I recall this tale to you for a few reasons. Laughs, mostly... my life is such a crazy display of equal parts love and utter shock most times that if I didn't take the time to sit back and just laugh I fear I might become a New York Times headline. Secondly, insight into both my life and perhaps your own... so you can either relate to me, or give yourself something to look forward to. Kids are most definitely not easy, but they do make all the poop smearing totally worth it.

Any crazy poop stories on your side? Please tell me I'm not the only one! Share your stories in the comments below!

xoxo
Mommy like Whoa