I want to share pictures of my most recent triumph, but for
so many reasons I cannot. You see, I recently survived a traumatic incident for
which I am dedicating this entire post. Maybe I will share one picture with
you: the conclusion of my ordeal.
It all started when I asked the three-year-old if she needed
to go potty before we ate dinner. She replied animatedly, “I go poop!” As
always, when she says that, I cheer her on as she runs toward the duck-potty
chair in the bathroom. “Go, go, go!” I say devotedly. Stomp, stomp, stomp she
goes as I stir the butter into the noodles and add just a little parmesan
cheese and salt. You have to stir the butter constantly until it’s melted or it
breaks and you have noodles with goop.
A minute passes and I hear from the bathroom, “I pooped!”
This is exciting news as we have mainly had success with pee over the past
month or so. I dropped what I was doing and ran to the bathroom to praise her
and clean up the potty. I stopped dead in the entryway when I saw poop. It was
everywhere. Some in her pull-up diaper which was tangled up with her underwear
on the floor. Some was on the front of the seat. A good helping was in the
potty itself, and the leftovers were spread equally amongst her four limbs. Sorry,
I keep thinking about the meal I should be eating now so I may have used a few gastronomic
terms.
I’m still just in my first year of being the household’s
male role-model. I’ve not yet had a fecal incident; I’ve only heard tales.
Other terms I tried to coin for that sentence were: feca-dent;
poop-stravaganza; and inci-poo.
I stood still and we locked eyes. There was fear coursing
through her veins because at some rudimentary level, she knew something was
wrong. Correspondingly, terror was surging through my arteries because at some fundamental
level, I knew I had to clean up shit. She was as confused as I was as to how it
all happened. There was only silence as I gathered in the scene and pondered my
options. I knew that since I was the only adult at home that I would have to
either clean it up myself, or pay some cleaning service to come take care of it
for me. No cleaning services in my area clean up these sorts of messes
according to a quick Google search, so I was on my own. (A side note, yes, I
did quickly Google that and there were some fascinating search results, one of
which is
in this link and is worth reading.)
After some reflection, I turned on the shower head and began
the fecal removal process, or, FecRemPro. You start with the kid and move to
the plastic if you didn’t know that. I figured, the plastic can’t run around and
get more shit on stuff while you clean the kid, but the opposite is untrue. In
the end, I spent six latex gloves, half of a roll of paper towels, several
wipes, and probably thirty gallons of water. Oh, also I threw away a loofah
because somehow it got poop on it. It was probably from when I used it to clean
the poop off of the kid.
Today’s lesson: never trust a kid.
No, really, this has been a process and it’s a lot harder
for her to figure it all out than it is for me to clean up an occasional mess.
I exaggerate certain points because I am the writer of this blog, but I am so
proud of this little girl and all of her accomplishments. Each day there are
successes and failures in all of our lives. When we make mistakes, we have to
clean up after them and move on. In a few months we won’t have these issues and
we can focus on more exciting ventures. For now, it’s shit.
