Poop in all consuming in my home. We have books about poop. We watch videos. I'm a parent of 4 children, and my youngest child is learning to use the potty.
This morning, just after I had finished making lunches for school getting two oldest ones out the door (thank heaven), and doing a tiny bit of cleaning, I heard my youngest daughter in the bathroom. "I pooped" she said. "Don't touch anything"-I said-I'll be right up".
Let's see. Not too bad today-she seemed only to have gotten poop on her hands- but her room stunk. We wash the hands and I run the bath. Plop her in. Strip the bed, toss the linens downstairs, change the bed. Now it's time to get my son dressed (in a specific color, because it is "color week" and today, appropriately, is brown....)
I go to work, and things are fine. I attend a meeting at the main office. I get a call from a child in the middle of a presentation. Then I zone out. I ask my supervisor, who thank heaven is a friendly lady and a parent, whether I was snoring.
I am supposed to go out with a friend for dinner, but I cancel. I feel the need to go to my son's baseball game instead, if it's not pouring. It turns out to be too wet, anyway, and so I opt to plant the many potted plants languishing in my garden instead. I think I will get my youngest daughter to help.
Instead of planting, my daughter helps by playing in the mud. She calls it poop. She seems to be enjoying playing in the poop-I am able to finish planing my shrubs. Every once in a while, I correct her and tell her the poop is really mud, but hey, whatever trips your trigger.
Ok, planting's done. We strip off as much as we can at the door-muddy footprints still track in-and we head directly for the bath. Child goes in tub, clothes go in laundry room (although I vaguely realize I can't put those clothes in the washer in the state they are in. That realization, however, is the extent of my laundry knowledge. I will try to give these clothes a rinse, and then give up and bring them to my mother. They will miraculously come back looking new.)
I have sent husband and son to the park to play ball, since most of the rain has stopped. They are to grocery shop, if you can call picking up hot dogs groceries, and I am supposed to make baked beans. We will eat this with the dandelions I picked while daughter was playing with poop. (We are big on dandelions this month. You can fry the flowers, eat the greens, and make wine out of the roots...)
I take my daughter out of the bath, and give her a clean pull up to wear. I am planning to put on the beans, and starting a pot of water for the hot dogs. I remember I have no bottled water for my oldest daughter for school, so I call my husband, intending to ask him to pick some up. I notice that the youngest, clean from her bath, has gone missing from the kitchen. Phone in hand, I head toward the living room. As I get to the foot of the stairs, I hear her upstairs in the bathroom. "I pooped" says she. "I'll be right there" I say. "Don't touch anything".
Well, she certainly has pooped, has taken off her soiled pull-up, and is holding something to wipe her bottom. "Put that in the toilet" I tell her. Too bad she didn't quite get to the bathroom on time, but it looks like she is not too messy, Oh well, I think she did a pretty good job; this is progress.
"Don't touch anything" I tell her again as I run the bath. The telephone in my hand is by now connected to my husband, who hears enough of this to get the picture. I tell him about the water. Of course, he has just left the store, but somewhat cheerfully agrees to go back...
For the third time today, my youngest daughter is in the bath, happily scrubbing. It is then that I notice what she used to wipe her bottom-a sock. As I fish out the sock, I pause to give thanks to God for not flushing the sock down the toilet, which has delicate plumbing.
I manage to throw the beans onto the stove as my husband and son pull into the driveway. I get a pot of water on for the hot dogs just before they open the door.....
