Lesson of the Day

Despite using half a roll of toilet paper per poop, the boy obviously has not mastered the art of wiping his own bum.

Note to self: Grab lightly from the laundry pile.

The Serenity Prayer - Extended Dance Remix

God,

Grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change, such as the fact that it is statistically normal for a 5 year old boy to still wet the bed,

The COURAGE to change the things I can; specifically the sheets at 3:15 a.m - Preferably without swearing,

And the WISDOM to remember to surreptitiously feel the boy's butt to detect if he's wearing a Pull-Up or trying to get away with big-boy underwear again.

Amen

There's Always Another Poop Story

I will admit this story was inspired - or rather I should say the memory was triggered - by my friend Jackie at The Other Side of the Fence. She's got a toddler and an infant right now so she's knee deep in it right now. So to speak.

We used to have "Poop Day". Sabrina has always had problems with pooping regularly even though she was a completely breastfed baby. For those of you that find that remark puzzling, breast milk has a natural laxative effect. Breastfed babies usually poop often. VERY often. As in after every feeding. Considering a breastfed newborn will generally eat approximately twelve times a day, that's a lotta poop.

But Sabrina's usual schedule was to poop every third day.

As in, "Is today Poop Day?"

"No, she's not due until tomorrow."

Every now and then she would stretch it to four, and once it was five days. Talk about your mudslide! Once she literally had poop from her neck to her toes. The sheer volume of poop was astounding for a roughly 7 to 8 pound baby. I was seriously beginning to wonder if she didn't store that stuff down a hollow leg.

She also liked to do it in her car seat for some unknown reason. So "poop day" inevitably also meant "disassemble car seat and excavate poop from molded plastic crevices day" as well. Since the cloth cover to her car seat was listed as hand wash (which I promptly ignored) and line dry (which I didn't since I once shrunk a sweater literally down to doll size) that also meant we were grounded for one day in between while we waited for her seat to dry.

I hereby declare it mandatory that all baby accessories should be machine wash and tumble dry. Up to and possibly including the baby.

Another myth those baby books imprinted on my brain was that breastfed baby poop didn't stink. While it is true that breastfed baby poop does not smell like formula fed baby poop (that stuff can clear a room faster than a Tarantula at an Arachnophobe Convention) it is not the rose petal scented stuff I must have been imagining. In fact it was one of the many things I had on my "Mama List" to discuss with the pediatrician at an early appointment. When I worriedly told him that her poop smells bad, he looked at me perplexedly, blinked a few times, and probably thinking this was the punch line to the other 35 odd questions I had just asked him, he chuckled and said, "Well that's because it's POOP."

Enjoy your Cocoa Puffs for breakfast.

You Can't Polish A Turd (Especially When There's Corn In It)

SOMEONE has kindly reminded me I have been delinquent in my blogging duties (thank you Laura, how can I resist when you flatter me so?) so I have settled in here with a cup of coffee determined to write something.

DISCLAIMER: I cannot be held responsible for content. All potty humor forthcoming is a product of blogging under "duress", the fact that I recently read two hilarious pieces involving colon cleansing and chili respectively, and the fact that having three children just naturally means your life involves copious amount of poo.

We are not worrying too much right now about attempting potty training yet. And by "we" of course I mean me. There is no "we" when it comes to potty training believe you me. The other parental unit in this house abdicated all potty duties long ago. He seems to think our children just miraculously sit down on the toilet one day and produce waste products in a timely and tidy manner much the same way all laundry seems to appear in his drawers cleaned and folded as if the Laundry Fairy pays him a nightly visit. She got directions to our house from the Tooth Fairy. But I digress as I am wont to do.

So the only assistance I can count on in potty training is pretty much from the dog. But you really don't want to know what she does to help. No really. Even *I* have limits on what I will print here.

So anyway, I take the lazy approach to potty training. I figure it's going to happen somewhere around three years of age with or without my help. I know this from experience. Sabrina being my first child I thought it was time to potty train somewhere around 18 months of age. She disagreed. To the point where she developed severe constipation involving years of laxative therapy from trying to hold in her poop so she didn't have to use that potty. And after being exasperated for a year and a half, tearing my hair out and being certain the girl would have to pack diapers in her lunchbox, one day shortly after she turned three she solemnly announced to my mother "I have to use the potty all the time now."

And she did. From that day forward.

So I finally figured out the important lesson of "You can lead a child to the toilet but you cannot make them poop." The dog on the other hand will be happy to be led to the toilet and drink anything available, never mind mellow yellow or brown not yet flushed down.

Hmmmm, it seems I really don't have limits on what I will talk about here.

Moving right along.

Jamie was much easier to potty train once I realized it was really just a matter of providing him with tools (a convenient potty) and incentive (kids don't like when you leave their diaper off and the pee runs down their legs), and they learn pretty quickly to use the potty. Granted Jamie had more of a fire hose effect, but honestly, I let him run around bare-ass for a few days and that was really all it took. Yes it involved cleaning up some pee, but after three kids, a dog and a cat, I'm kind of used to that by now no?

But I can honestly say, none of my kids ever pooped without a diaper on or a potty under their butts.

So the other day, Meredith removed her diaper. She likes to do this. When you're two, something as simple as this is a major achievement in your life. She was going to take a nap soon so I felt no need to rush over and put a new one on for the 10-15 minutes before she took her nap. Besides I was very busy with important work, AKA surfing the Internet.

So she carried on playing with Play-Doh at the dining room table sans pants. And I will confess I forgot she wasn't wearing a diaper (I miss my brain cells sometimes), so when she sounded a little more alarmed than normal when she said "Mama poop!" it surprised me a little.

Then the hamster stirred from his Internet induced coma, got on his wheel with a creaky groan, and the synapses began to fire again.

Despite her complete willingness, I thwarted all of the dog's efforts to help clean up.

The dog won't eat the damn Cheerios the kids drop on the floor like snowflakes, but she's more than willing to entertain the end result.

Next Time I'll Just Flush Her Clean

When you've already given the cat a bath by 8:30 a.m. it doesn't bode well for the day.

Especially when said bath is occurring at the same time you are trying to get your 7 year old, who likes to miss the bus, on the school bus.

Most especially when aforementioned bath is absolutely necessary because the brainless cat has fallen in the toilet full of pee and poop because no matter how you beg and plead, your housebroken children cannot seem to remember to flush.

As a side note, cats don't like baths.

I look like an attempted suicide with Parkinson's.

It's A Family Affair

How is it that a 4 year old boy can fill the toilet bowl with toilet paper, use two handfuls of wipies, smear the toilet seat with poo in the process,

And STILL manages to leave skid-marks in his underwear?

Because I Like To Share Exciting News

Taffy doesn't really seem to know she's a dog. Playing with Frisbees, or "fetch" is completely beneath her. She thinks sleeping all day is an admirable career choice. She's not eating food off the floor unless maybe it's hot dog. And licking humans to show affection? You can almost see her shudder delicately at the thought. In fact I've always said she's really more cat than dog. Considering her questionable lineage it's not completely out of the question that somewhere one of her ancestors did do the Wild Thing with a cat.
But she has one very annoying, very expensive, very dog-like behavior.

She suffers from something called Pica. This is just a fancy way to say Taffy likes to eat clothing. Specifically my clothing. Even more specifically, my underwear.

She's very discriminating when it comes to this behavior. The granny panties I buy from Wal-Mart in a package of 6 for $5.00? No, no, no, she would far prefer to eat the expensive ones that come from Victoria's Secret or Macy's if given a choice. Don't get me wrong, she will eat the El-Cheapos, but it's sort of like if you or I were given a choice of eating at McDonald's or The Four Seasons. She will eat the Hanes, but she will actually go digging through a closed laundry hamper for $15 panties.

Of which I no longer own any because I got tired of feeding them to the dog. And we like to pay the bills and buy groceries at least some of the time around here.

Every vet I've asked tells me this behavior is in response to some sort of anxiety or boredom. While it is true she only does it when she's alone - I've never once caught her in the act - I can't understand where boredom or anxiety would come into the picture. When you are waited on hand and foot, given everything you could possibly want, and rarely left alone, where exactly does boredom and/or anxiety occur? She sneaks into the basement to do it when nobody's watching.

It might be cheaper to buy her some Prozac.

Unfortunately for her, since she is not in fact a goat, this behavior is actually dangerous to her health. Most of the time she simply passes the cloth, as evidenced by the cheerful multi-colored piles in the yard (Yay! Decorative poop. Martha Stewart eat your heart out.). But on Thursday, since I've been more conscientious about keeping underwear out of her reach, she accepted a substitute and instead ate a dish towel.

Since we can neither afford to feed her underwear, nor pay $2,000 to have cloth removed from her intestinal tract, we have been worriedly watching her try to make something come out of her rear since then, to no avail.

This morning Dave called me to tell me he found a pile of poo on the living room carpet. Did you ever imagine this could be good news?

Me either.

Luckily I'm Not Fond Of French Manicures

I worked with a girl years ago who was exceptionally perky. Strangely enough we got along well; I think she was the counter-balance to my natural tendency toward grumpiness. But she annoyed the heck out of our other co-workers. I remember when she got pregnant and a woman we worked with (who shared my tendency toward the crabby side) said rather snidely, "Just wait til she gets a little shit under that French manicure at 3 a.m. and we'll see how cheery she is then."

I didn't have any kids of my own at the time, but just nodded my head and agreed like I knew what she was talking about.

But the truth is, I had no idea what awaited me.

For those of you with weak stomachs or those of you that don't share my Beavis and Butthead-like amusement with poop stories, be warned. This one is chock-full of the brown stuff.

Meredith's diaper digging the other day reminded me of a habit of Jamie's I had tried very hard to forget. I've met another person whose son practiced this habit. And I read countless stories about it online in my desperate search for reassurance that my son was not totally abnormal and not destined to be a serial killer or that kid that eats his boogers (or worse).

I would put Jamie down for an afternoon nap around 1:00 every day. He would go into his crib willingly enough and I'd hear him happily chattering away to his animals or singing little songs to himself. Then he'd get quiet.

But in Jamie's case, silence was not golden. Silence was often brown.

Jamie not only removed and examined the contents of his diaper. He was artistic with it. A regular PicASSo. I'm all for artistic expression, but that was not the finger painting I had in mind.

The tricky thing was, if he got quiet and was honestly simply getting ready to fall asleep, and I checked on him too soon, he would pop up like a Jack-in-the-Box upon seeing me peeking in the door, and refuse to go to sleep.

But waiting too long before I checked on him meant his crib and walls displayed almost as much talent as this kid's. Except Jamie's palette was limited to one color.

Jamie loved getting a bath and was deliriously happy when he was unceremoniously dumped into the tub for a complete scrubbing. I began to wonder if he was wiping poo on his walls just so he could get a bath. So I began plopping him in the shower. What can I say? The boy adapted and learned to like showers.

I read everything I could find on how to handle this disgusting behavior. Mostly I encountered articles about monkeys flinging poo. And while I often compared Jamie to a monkey, being as he wasn't, in fact, a young simian, they weren't particularly helpful with the behavior modification.

I read about the possible psychological causes. The possibility that he was angry or stressed or depressed came up in several online articles. Seeing as he was laughing gleefully most of the time he was poop painting, I didn't put much stock in these explanations.

I'm not sure where I finally came across this solution, but as usual, the simplest solution proved to be the best. No need for psychological evaluation, extensive therapy or lengthy conversations with a 2 year old about his reasons for smearing poo everywhere.

Just separate the boy from the poop. Put his pajamas on backwards with the zipper in the back. And thank God Jamie's many talents did not extend towards Houdini-like abilities.

In the end I found a little extra shit under my fingernails made no improvement in my mood to be certain.

Fortunately I wasn't that cheerful to begin with.

Because Wheaties Are Never This Misleading

Dave was in charge of breakfast this Labor Day holiday morning. I am the cold cereal breakfast parent, so the kids look forward to days when Dave is home and puts forth more effort than I can muster up before noon.

Coco Wheats were on the menu this morning. It's cereal, it's warm, and it's CHOCOLATE! FOR BREAKFAST! So they get a hot breakfast and get to feel like they're breaking the rules. I just sip my coffee and pretend to disapprove.

I took advantage of Meredith being strapped into her booster seat eating her Coco Wheats and began to tackle the mess we sometimes call the kitchen. We try to uncover the counters every so often just to prove we have them.

She had been yelling "Done!" at me for a few minutes when I finally went over and swiped at the mess she had made of her hands and face with a damp paper towel. As I lifted her out of her seat I realized she had also made a stinky diaper deposit so I carried her upstairs to clean off her bottom half.

When I began to change her I noticed she was messy down her legs and made a mental note to clean her booster seat when I got downstairs. Then I thought back to the brown mess I had wiped off her hands and took a sniff at her fingers.

Let's just say it wasn't very chocolatey.

Privacy Not Included

I wasn't a terribly shy or extremely modest person before I became a Mom. At least I don't think so. It's hard to remember who I was B.K. (Before Kids) sometimes. But now that I have children I have no shame whatsoever.

Children have no desire for privacy therefore they don't see why I should want any. Anyone who can yodel "COME WIPE MY BUM!" at the top of their lungs loud enough that it reaches me in the basement from the bathroom on the second floor just isn't interested in bathroom etiquette.

I've shared these bathroom stories with friends over the years. They always laugh and chuckle and nod, but I think most of them chalk it up to my typical use of exaggeration to tell a good story.

So it was with much delight that I received this email from my best friend Melissa a few weeks ago. Melissa had her first baby shortly after I had my third, and her lovely daughter Leone has entered that delightful stage of toddlerdom where closed doors are not an option.

"Wanted to let you know that all these years when I thought I’d really appreciated what you were on about when you wished you could have a pee in private…..I THOUGHT you meant that it was because you had one or more little people in there with you…What I didn’t realize until lately was that THEY WANT TO LEAVE THE DOOR OPEN TOO!!"

Welcome to my world my dearest old friend. I've been waiting for you to get here for the longest time.

But now I'm pretty sure I've achieved the pinnacle of public displays of urination.

We took the kids to Idlewild Park on Friday. It's a local amusement park in Ligonier, PA and we try to get there once a year. It's a one hour drive so we always take pajamas with us and get everyone changed before we head home so we can put everyone straight to bed.

I took the two girls into the public restroom in the parking lot so I could change Meredith's diaper and Sabrina and I could use the facilities. Meredith was still in the stroller when we entered the bathroom, and I figured this would nicely solve the problem of how to keep her contained while I used the facilities.

But Sabrina decided to use the large handicapped stall and was still in it when I needed to go. I couldn't leave Meredith alone while I went in the stall and of course the stroller wouldn't fit in the stall with me. The stall door will just have to stay open and I'll use the stroller as a shield of sorts.

As I sat down, I realized I was in a stall, with the door wide open, in a brightly back lit public bathroom, in full view of the dark parking lot. Not unlike peeing on stage in the spotlight of a dark theater. But there is a point of no return so to speak once you get started. And of course three people came in as I sat there grinning weakly and hoping they too were Moms.

Did you hear that? That was the last shred of my dignity hitting the floor.

Sometimes A Toilet Beats Out Brad Pitt

"Mama I was having a really good dream and I accidentally wet the bed in my sleep."

What were you dreaming?

"I was dreaming about being on the toilet."

At Least It Was Flushed This Time

Meredith loves to brush her teeth. I realized this when every time we would pass the bathroom she would point and yell "TEE! TEE!" She can happily while away at least 10 minutes in her crib "brushing" her teeth. This has proven helpful when I want to do something luxurious like pee in private.

This morning Jamie left the gate at the bottom of the steps open and after a few minutes I realized I no longer heard or saw Meredith. As usual she had taken the opportunity to climb quietly up the stairs.

She was standing in the bathroom, holding a toothbrush in each hand, neither of which was hers. One was in the toilet and one was in her mouth. I'm sure it's too much to hope the one in her mouth hadn't visited the toilet previously.

On a positive note, my toilet is minty fresh.

Even Superman Wore Training Pants

Jamie is so very eager to move on to a new stage in his life - wearing big boy underpants to bed. At the moment he's still relegated to Diego and Bob the Builder as featured on pull-up style training pants.

Other than the occasional Oopsie when he's outside playing and forgets to pay attention, and I miss the telltale pee wiggle and crotch-grab - he's a champ at using the toilet.

But come nighttime, the floodgates open and you'd swear that kid drank Niagara Falls with a Lake Erie chaser right before he fell asleep.

From everything I've read and heard it's completely normal for boys to take longer to be potty-aware at nighttime so this doesn't bother me a bit.

Jamie on the other hand finds this deeply troubling.

You see, they don't make pull-ups featuring Spider-Man or Superman. We'd even accept Handy Manny in a pinch (all of whom are featured on his underwear selection).

Every morning he wakes up and tells me his pull-up is dry, he can wear his underpants to bed now.

Except of course they're not.

Last night Dave and I were having a typical evening puttering around, watching a little TV, checking emails, when I heard a familiar sound coming from the monitor. It's not at all unusual for me to be summoned by a small crib-dweller around 10:30 pm so I prepared to go up and explain to her that yes, it was still bedtime.

But as the wails escalated we realized it was Jamie. Jamie's a pretty good sleeper and usually only wakes up if he's sick so both Dave and I ran upstairs to make sure he was okay. We found him standing up next to his bed crying and when I reached for him he felt wet from the neck down. "Jamie did you throw up?"

Then I felt a little further south and realized there was an absence of familiar padded undergarment in the lower region.

Without 3 inches of ultra mega absorbent mystery gel encased in cloth-like paper between the bed and his birthday suit, there was pee from his pillow on down to the stuffed animals at the foot of his bed.

After getting a bath and his bed changed and back into bed, he admitted he hadn't put a pull-up on before bed.

"Really Mama. Spider-Man doesn't wear pull-ups."

In Which I Overshare Again

I've acquired an odd travel habit from my Mother. All my life when we went on vacation I remember her setting aside one small hard side suitcase, approximately 14 x 12 x 12, completely for the purpose of medicines. Some of this may have started because my sister used to take several different medications throughout the day to control seizures. But she never stopped doing it long after my sister stopped accompanying us on vacation.

I was thinking about this habit as I was unpacking the medication suitcase the other day. Yes I know I've been home from vacation for almost a month. I've got a blog to keep up and three kids to raise, and I obviously suck at one, so I've got to keep busy with the other.

Anyway, as I saying.

I was unpacking this suitcase (the very same one, I borrowed it specifically for our vacation) and wondering what compels this behavior.

I packed infant Tylenol, infant Ibuprofen, children's Tylenol, children's Ibuprofen, ADULT Tylenol..........you get the picture. In addition I had Benadryl, 6 different types of sunscreen, Solarcaine sunburn spray, heartburn medication, Tums, the list goes on

Because you know, you just can't find all that stuff in the wilds of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We're talking about the part of the country that gave BIRTH to Wal-Mart.

But as it turns out, I left out the one critical item that I actually needed. The day before we were ready to leave for home I found myself in dire need of a tampon. A major tragedy was averted by getting in my van and driving to the nearest Wal-Mart which happened to be only 10 minutes from the beachfront condo we stayed in. And I only had to battle one vicious lion and struggle through a small jungle to get there.

However the next day when we left for Pennsylvania I discovered all the joys of changing tampons in gas station and truck stop rest rooms along the highway. And as if that wasn't enjoyable enough, I also found Jamie had generously shared his case of diarrhea with me.

Turns out there wasn't any Immodium in that suitcase either.

Did you know highway gas station rest rooms can provide you with condoms in red, blue, green, or even glow in the dark (colors dispensed randomly), but they are woefully short on tampons or Immodium?

Maybe I'll take a bigger suitcase next year.

The Straight Poop

I'm sure you were all waiting and wondering to hear exactly which child had diarrhea and the outcome of 13 hours in a vehicle.

Or maybe that's just me.

It was Jamie and he did just fine. We had lots of extra bathroom stops for him that first day but it was okay.

We did however insist he wear a pull-up for the trip. This deeply wounded his fully potty-trained four year old big boy sensibilities.

But I figure insurance can pay for his therapy someday. My van seats are leather dammit.

Definitely Not A Cheerio

I'm going to come clean so to speak and just admit right up front that I am no domestic goddess. In fact my housekeeping skills could best be described as "lackadaisical". That old saying "A lick and a promise"? That about sums me up. But 9 times out of 10 the licking is done by the dog. She's handy that way.

But dog notwithstanding, with 3 children, our house tends to be liberally sprinkled with, well, stuff. Graham crackers, potato chip crumbs, various breakfast cereals, and pieces of whatever Jamie was supposed to be eating while sitting at the table all seem to be scattered about like jimmies on a cupcake.

Meredith, like most toddlers, likes to put things in her mouth. We're pretty good at making sure that she doesn't find coins, Barbie shoes, or rubber bands before we do, but actual edibles we don't worry too much about. While I realize it's not ideal for the one year old to be eating things off the floor, I'm not going to lose sleep over the random cracker. Besides, it keeps her from eating the carpet lint and dust bunnies.

She has begun to realize that there are certain things we do not want her to put in her mouth. And she has an endearing habit of showing me the things she's picked up off the floor before she eats it. It doesn't mean she actually wants me to have it. In fact she gets quite offended when I do remove one of her finds from her grubby little fist. But if she's showing me, oh, say a Cheerio that she tossed from her high chair a few hours ago, I'm not going to go ballistic prying it from her grip.

So today she was happily wandering the kitchen pulling Tupperware out of the cabinets while I kept half an eye on her as I perused my email. She has a nasty diaper rash at the moment so I was giving her some fresh air bare-bum time sans diaper.

She approached my chair with her left hand outstretched, fingers in the pincer grasp position, proclaiming her usual "Eennh" which loosely translated, means "Look Mom. Look what I have."

Still only half looking and half reading I reached out and patronizingly sing-songed at her "THANK YOU!".

The texture penetrated the synapses of my brain only slightly before the smell hit my nostrils and I processed exactly what it was she was handing me.

I am sad to admit that Taffy was quite disappointed that I did not allow her to clean that up.

Cold Case - Solved

Like most people I keep a cleaning brush for my toilet bowl in my bathroom. And like most people I like to keep it discreetly tucked away.

Because no matter how nice and clean and white that brush looks EVERYONE knows where it's been and what it's been doing and well, just, eeeeeeew.

I have mine in a small container that's meant to be, if not decorative, then at least subtle. It's shaped like a tall blue vase and the brush handle goes through a blue disc that serves as a lid to this "vase." Thereby tucking the brush out of sight and also closing off the top so the only evidence of the actual purpose of this item is an unobtrusive silver handle.

A few months back I took the brush out to use it and when I went to replace it in its holder I noticed a noxious liquid in it. At the time I just sort of scratched my head (strictly figuratively; I made sure to wash my hands before touching myself anywhere after that task), dumped the liquid in the toilet and rinsed out the container.

But in light of recent events, and bathtub confessions, light has dawned upon the darkened mind.

I believe we have not only discovered the origins of the liquid, but also the small male perpetrator.

Snips And Snails And Puppy Dog Tails (And Other Things That Come From Puppy Dogs)

Yesterday as we were getting all the kids ready for bed with baths and showers (bath for Jamie and Meredith, shower for Sabrina), Dave was puttering around picking up wet towels, dirty underwear and the other various items of dirty laundry that seem to just sprout on our floor like mushrooms. One minute the floor is clear and the next thing you know there's a full load of laundry scattered around.

He pulled the garbage from the garbage can in the bathroom and exclaimed "Why is there pee in the garbage can?"

Usually these questions come from the under 5 set so I was a little taken aback but I was game to humor him. Are you sure it's pee honey? Sometimes the kids toss their Dixie cups in with a little water in it.

"Yes it's pee! I know what pee looks like and I especially know what pee SMELLS like!"

We do toss the odd disposable diaper here and there into that garbage can. Meredith wears mostly cloth, but Jamie still needs one at night and we use Huggies for that purpose. Some weird chemical reaction between the pee in the diaper and something that was tossed on top must have allowed a little of the pee to somehow be released and drip into the bottom of the garbage can.

As I'm composing a righteously indignant letter of complaint to the manufacturers of Huggies in my head, and vowing once again to try and get Jamie to sleep without a diaper, Dave shoves the offending can under my nose.

That's no dribble of pee. There's about 2 cups in there.

Just considering anatomy alone, Jamie is the obvious culprit. So I yell into the tub where he is suspiciously quiet.

"Jamie did you pee in the garbage can?"

"No."

"Maybe just once did you pee in the garbage can?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure Mama. It was more than ONCE."

Nobody can utilize semantics for a logical defense argument like a three year old.

Do all little boys do weird and disgusting things or am I just exceptionally blessed?

Too Much Information Ahead

Don't you hate it when you get out of the shower and you have to poop?

(With an opening line like that I'm pretty sure this entry can only go up but I've been known to be wrong)

This morning no sooner had I stepped out and toweled off than I needed to use the facility. It's like it pretty much destroys the whole purpose of the shower.

Because I don't care how well you wipe, there's going to be microscopic poop remnants. For some reason if this occurs later in the day this doesn't bother me as much. But straight out of the shower?

Man it's enough to ruin my whole day.

It ranks right up there with brushing your teeth and throwing up. Which I did regularly while pregnant.

And that's maybe even worse than a fresh out of the shower poop. Because if you throw up when you brush your teeth you've got to brush your teeth again.

Can we see the vicious cycle forming here people?

And while we're on the subject of poop - (no don't go changing the subject on me people. It's MY blog and I can talk about poop if I want to. It's been done before.)

What's up with babies pooping just as soon as you've put a fresh clean diaper on them?

These are just a few of the important things I ponder sometimes while I'm sitting on the......

Well, we won't go there.

Don't Drink The Apple Juice

First I must preface this story by saying that the story I am about to tell will disturb my mother on so many levels. So if you're reading this Mom, uh, Hi! You might want to stop now. Consider yourself warned.

We keep a gate at the bottom of the steps to keep Meredith from climbing the stairs - there are 13 of them so a pretty good fall if she were to fall down them. She thinks climbing stairs is big fun so she makes a beeline for them if she thinks they're open. She also seems to have a capacity for hearing tones previously detectable only by canines and sensitive computer equipment; hearing so powerful that she hears this gate opening regardless of where she is in the house.

Jamie just recently learned how to open this gate so he can go upstairs to use the bathroom, but he doesn't always remember to close it. Being a three year old boy, he also (like many adult males I know) does not always remember to flush. Heck I'm just happy when he gets the pee in the toilet.

So I'm sitting here and realize I don't see Meredith at the same time I hear a noise from upstairs. I go flying upstairs and there she is grinning a self-satisfied grin, soaked up to her shoulders in toilet water (you guessed it - unflushed) gleefully splashing with the pitcher we use to rinse hair in one hand and bobbing the drain plug up and down in the other hand like some sort of weird demented splashing yo-yo.

As a friend pointed out, I was grateful Jamie didn't have to poop.