If you’re not a parent or you are this guy or currently eating, you may want to skip this post. I’m breaking one of my blogging rules, which is to never write about “bathroom matters” (aka poop). However, dealing with poop is a universal theme for parents. Yesterday morning we had an incident so comical I wondered if I was being Punk’d by my husband and there was a hidden camera in the towel basket. If you are anxious to potty train your child, be forewarned that you are just trading in one type of bathroom maintenance for another. Or, as my sister Laurie put it so well, you have to deal with your child using public restrooms. But I digress. Yesterday I was feeding the baby breakfast and realized that it was TOO QUIET. Caitlin had disappeared which typically means she is in the bathroom. I yelled out, “Caitlin, are you alright?” to which I heard a somewhat sassy, “Yes, mama I ALRIGHT.” I put the baby in the playpen and went in the bathroom to a scene that would have horrified me during my single post-college years, but to which I shuddered only momentarily before barging in bravely. Caitlin had had a bowel movement and, as she is so fond of cleaning up and helping mama around the house, she apparently decided that the poop was much better suited to go down the bathroom drain.
She dropped some poop on the way to the sink I’m sad to say (thank God it was well-formed) on the floor in front of the toilet, however, and somehow had stepped in it while attempting to clean it. She also had smeared it on the bathroom wall as she pulled down all the remaining toilet paper left in our house because someone was sleep deprived yesterday at the grocery and forgot to buy the most critical item on her list - toilet paper. I whipped out the flushable Scrubbing Bubbles wipes, SC Johnson’s gift to parents, and Caitlin began to scream, “I WANNA CLEAN UP MAMA!” over and over again. I just went crazy cleaning up the poop because I did not want her to step in it, fall and hit her head on the toilet and end up with a concussion and a trip to the Vandy ER. She cried and screamed and 30 minutes later she conceded to changing clothes, because aforementioned poop was now on her shirt, and to washing her hands with, GOD FORBID, good ole bar soap. As a side note to my mother, this is why I did not answer the phone yesterday morning when you called. I will try to refrain from future poop stories, as my daughter would be mortified by the telling of this tale some day, but they will provide arsenal during her teenage years.
