Craptastic

I deal with a lot of crap.  You might think I’m being all philosophical and what not, but I’m totally serious.  I handle quite a lot of other peoples’ poop, and I know I’m not alone in that.  It’s one of the things that “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” (also known as “You Cannot Possibly Live Up to the Standards of This Author” or “What to Expect When You Have No Freaking Idea What You’ve Gotten Yourself Into with this Kid-Having Thing”) doesn’t really mention.  Oh sure, it talks about how often newborns poop and how to tell diarrhea from that yellow breast milk poop.  But it should really feature a whole chapter on how to prepare for being the custodian of kid crap.  And it should be up front about what’s really coming down the pike here.

I’m talking about how any mother will have her hands in kid poop for the better part of a SOLID FIVE YEARS.  I’m talking about the days and nights spent worrying about how much they pooped when they were tiny, or what color it was.  We were in the hospital five days with Lunchbox when he was five weeks old because he DIDN’T poop.  He seriously pooped like once a week, and he was breastfed (at least for a little while, and that’s a whole other story and one that will not welcome comments from moms lucky enough to have entire freezers full of excess breast milk or those who want to explain how I didn’t try hard enough. Thanks.) Anyway, I’m just sayin’ – there really should be more poop preparation.  My big kid, Turbo, is almost four and I’m evidently not done with his poop even though he’s out of diapers and partially self-sufficient in the bathroom.  For some reason he still needs to tell me every single time he needs to poop or pee.  Which, yesterday, was part of the problem.

Mornings are not my favorite time.  Well, actually, if they’re quiet, and they involve coffee and mommy free time, then they ARE.  But workday mornings are not my favorite time.  I’m usually rushing through the effort to get my ridiculous hair into some kind of configuration that doesn’t reveal my gray roots or horrific split ends or make me look like a ten year old, while simultaneously arguing with Turbo about whether or not it is a school day.  Yesterday I had some early success convincing him that it was, indeed, a school day, and he trundled off to put on his clothes, which we lay out the night before.  I guess while he was getting dressed, an urge must’ve struck because he came into my room again and yelled desperately, “MOM! I have to POOP!”  My usual answer, “Then why are you standing here talking to me?  Go poop!”  Turbo ran the maybe thirty feet to his bathroom and then proceeded to offer a somewhat frightening commentary.  “Oh no. Poop everywhere. Oh, man!  Huh… gonna have to clean this up.  Poop on my pants.  Crap.” (he now says “crap” in oddly appropriate circumstances, though I am trying to break him of the habit, lest they threaten to kick us out of our ultra-polite Montessori school…)

I finished my hair and decided I’d better go see what was up, dread in the pit of my stomach.  The scene was too grisly to fully describe here, but let me just say that it involved Turbo needing a bath, the floor and toilet needing a Clorox scrub, and my Pottery Barn bathmat and Turbo’s clothes needing an immediate hot wash.  I might have questioned Turbo about how this could have happened a bit excessively, but I was mad.  Especially when I said something about how there was poop on the floor of my bathroom and he started screaming “This is MY bathroom!! Not YOURS!!”  I told him that when he cleaned up the bathroom himself it could be his but until then, it was mine.  I also pointed out that maybe, if the problem was that he just didn’t quite make it in time, he could save some time in the future by not coming to tell me that he had to poop, and JUST GOING TO DO IT.

Not my favorite way to start the morning.  The Major, snug in our bed, heard the commotion and some of my not-so-pleased remarks, and called out, “I’ll clean up the floor, just leave it.”  I still can’t imagine that he thought I (I, who tend to be just the teensiest bit anal in the cleaning department – and I’m not saying that in a good way to make others believe I’m oh-so-perfect. It’s a problem. More on that another time) he thought I was going to leave poop on the floor indefinitely in hopes that he’d remember to clean it up later… Like poop should ever be left chillin’… agh!  I was not a very happy camper yesterday morning, but at least Turbo offered, “Sorry I pooped on your rug, Mom.” One for the hard sayings log.

Just another in the never-ending series of what we now refer to as “Craptastrophes.”