Another Way In Which My Offspring Are Weird

No matter how many times it happens, I never get over the shock of walking into one of the bathrooms in my house and seeing this:

This is the handy work of my oldest son.  Every time he sits down on the toilet, he covers the seat with not one, but two layers of toilet paper.  The whole seat.

Because I'm super intelligent, I've deduced that Cameron either hates a cold toilet seat, or he suffers from selective germaphobia.  The kind that does not exist in his bedroom, but rages out of control in the bathroom. 

Honestly, the toilets might not be clean enough to eat off of, but it's not like we live at a truck stop.

Baptism By Poo

The day we moved into our townhouse, Andrew and I were lucky enough to have the help of six family members.  Many hands did, in fact, make light work.  

We emptied our storage unit, carted all our earthly wares to the new place, and unloaded it.  Piece of cake.  And then we sat down for a nice, huge Costco muffin before we headed back to Vancouver to drop everyone back at their vehicles.

But before we left the house, someone had to poop.  Four of the eight of us had Kestner blood running through our veins, so it was bound to happen.

And it would have been fine, except that this someone, my brother-in-law, must have relieved himself of the Emperor of Turds, because I heard him yell for help from the upstairs bathroom.  For real, he called my name in a panic and told me to get up there.

I shouted a worried, "Why?", up the stairs, and was told that....  (wait for it...)...  The toilet was overflowing and there was poo water all over the floor.

My brother-in-law had christened my bathroom with Holy Crap! Water.

No way was I going to go up there and have the memory of poop floating on the floor to live with.  So I went outside and got my husband, who shares DNA with the offender, and sent him upstairs with a bottle of Lysol, a towel that could be introduced to the trash can outside when it had done it's duty, and the instructions to slap the offender across the face and show him how to shut off the water when "danger" is imminent. (I'm sure that my brother-in-law really does know how to shut the water off, and simply froze in a moment of panic.)

When the disaster was cleaned up, Mr. Poop came down the stairs and informed me that we were going to have problems with that toilet because his poop was insignificant compared to what Andrew surely does.

Well, Brother-in-law...  You remain the only person to clog that toilet.

The downstairs bathroom is an entirely different story though.

A River Of Vomit

The hubs and I have never had a Thanksgiving dinner in our own home.  Having family around for the holidays is both a blessing and a curse.  I can't imagine not being with my loved ones for Thanksgiving, but going somewhere else for the feast means never having turkey and trimmings leftovers.

So every stinking year we have to cook our own Thanksgiving turkey, dressing, yams, etc, the day after Thanksgiving so that we can have a turkey sandwich and the very best of all - turkey soup.  The whole thing is a bit of a pain, and not much fun after the real deal has been done, but it's worth it.  

You may not know it, but there are many phases of leftover turkey.  Allow me to expound.

Phase 1 - Roasted turkey, of course. (As in, the whole bird taken in it's virgin form from the oven.)

Phase 2 - Plain old leftover turkey.

Phase 3 - Fried turkey.  Oh, yum.

Phase 4 - Mashed potatoes with turkey gravy.  Just like they used to make in the school cafeteria, minus stray hairs. 

Phase 5 - Turkey sandwiches.  (And for lunch for the next two days as well.)

Phase 6 - Turkey soup.

Phase 7 - Turkey soup with a block of cream cheese melted into it.  It's the culmunation of all things beautiful about Thanksgiving turkey.

So this year we cooked our turkey on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and then skipped phases three through six and went straight for the joyous and fattening cream cheese turkey soup.

Cameron is a huge fan of Phase 7 Turkey.  He drooled all afternoon while smelling the soup simmering on the stove.  And when dinner hit the table he attacked the soup with a vigor usually reserved for delicacies like baskets full of fresh summer strawberries and banana splits (hold the banana).

Not long after dinner Cameron complained of a stomach ache.  I told him he'd probably eaten too much too fast and to just take it easy until he felt better.  About an hour after that I heard him call me from the bathroom.  I was in the middle of a very important task and couldn't personally attend to him.  I figured he needed a toilet paper refill or something.  So I sent Ethan to find out what he wanted.  

The next thing I hear is Ethan screaming, "MOM!!!!" and retreating back down the hallway.

Jumping from my computer chair, I bolted to the hallway and found a river of turkey soup vomit flowing out from under the bathroom door and oozing slowly toward me.  I straddled the river and flung open the bathroom door.  There stood Cameron looking somewhat relieved, but mostly afraid.  As well he should have.

Who stands in a bathroom and pukes on the door instead of in the toilet?  My kid, apparently.

There was so much vomit I honestly couldn't believe Cameron's stomach had held that much liquid.  There were unchewed baby carrots floating on the bathroom floor, and some of the bow-tie noodles I had put in the soup had miraculously gotten underneath the bathroom door and were drifting down the hall - also unchewed.  Good hell, that kid must have really wolfed that soup down.

Andrew and I stood there and tried to figure out how to clean up a mess that size.  We considered the shop vac, but opted for bath towels that we could just toss into the trash afterward.  Two bath towels, six rags, half a roll of paper towels, and one bottle of Lysol later, the bathroom still smelled like Lake Vomit.  

I tried sprinkling baking soda on the floor and all down the hallway to get rid of the smell, but that didn't work either.  The problem is, we have a tile floor in our bathroom, and the bozo who laid it didn't bother to seal the grout, so the vomit just kinda soaked in and set up camp.  

I finally had to call my mom for suggestions, and she said I should try vinegar.  I basically just dumped an entire bottle of the stuff on the floor, and that worked in the end.

I am happy to say that the experience did not kill my love for Cream Cheese Turkey Soup.  I had some for lunch the next day, and it tasted just as divine as it did before I associated it with barf.

Because I Clean Up Enough Poop Already - Take Two

Poppy, the woman I wish I had the balls to be, suggested that this story was worthy of a re-post.  Who am I to argue?  This version, however, has been drastically edited so that the average person can finish reading it in the span of one lifetime....

My kids are not privileged. Andrew and I provide them with the things they need, ie; food, clothing, shelter, love, etc. They have never been to Disneyland, Chuck E. Cheese's is a fictional place they see on TV, I have never seen a reason to buy them a pair of Heelys, (there are plenty of other ways for them to brake their wrists and rudely cut off other people in the grocery store aisles), they do not have their own laptops, I frequently buy their clothes at a consignment shop, and a second hand Playstation 2 is the closest they will ever get to having a cool gaming system.

Experiencing want gives a person character and depth. Gratitude. Generosity. An ability to empathize with others who experience a more meaningful want. I regularly deprive my children of material goods both to save myself a heap of money and to raise them up to be decent people. I certainly hope it's working.

There is one area, however, where I feel I have short changed my kids, and might continue doing so for a good, long while: We have never had a pet. Unless you count the time that I bought them each a fish when Cameron was four and Ethan was two. Andrew and I let Cameron and Ethan each pick out one fish. They were both thrilled, and I was amused at the naming process.

"Cameron, what are you going to name your fish?", I asked.

"Fish."

"Yes, I know it's a fish, but what are you going to call him?"

"Fish."

Okay.

"Ethan, what are you going to name your fish?"

"Blue," was Ethan's firm reply.

"But he's yellow?" I pointed out.

"No. Blue."

Fish and Blue were members of our family for about a week when we noticed that Blue was taking bites out of Fish whenever Fish happened to swim in Blue's personal space. This went on for a day or two, and finally, when Fish's back-end was missing several scales and he was swimming a little bit lopsided, I decided that we would have to exterminate poor Blue. I didn't want to have to explain to Ethan what had become of his beloved pet, so I told him that his fish was being very bad and hurting the other fish, so we would have to flush him down the toilet to go live with the other naughty fish. 

Ethan was fascinated by Blue swirling around in the toilet bowl, and finally disappearing into that mysterious world of Fish Rehabilitation.

A day or so later we went to the pet store again and replaced Blue with two fish that looked like Dalmations, and which I took the liberty of naming Pongo and Perdita.

Our fish experience did not get better from there. Shortly after the arrival of our two new fish, I became very tired of the weekly tank cleanings. They were more of an exercise for my gag reflex than anything else. I was sure that cleaning the tank so often shouldn't have been necessary, and so I again paid a visit to Pet Smart, where I was helped by a girl who falsely advertised intelligence by wearing black-framed glasses. She told me that a couple of snails would do the trick. The snails eat scum, see, so two of them ought to be able to handle our little ten gallon tank. No prob. I picked out two black fellas and, after acclimating them to the temperature of our tank's water, dumped them into their new home, which featured a smorgasbord of delicious, green slime.

The next day, neither snail had moved so much as an inch from where they landed upon their arrival, and had not even had the courtesy to emerge from their shells and introduce themselves to their tank mates. I assumed, after another day of observation, that going so long without activity could only mean that they were dead. I guiltily buried them in the kitchen trash. I later learned that such behavior is normal for snails and that I probably gave our two black friends a live burial, but what can I say? Someone should have warned me.

Back to Pet Smart, where I got two more snails, yellow this time, in case they might be more durable than the black, and home we went. The yellow snails were not a bit shy about exploring their new surroundings and took no time at all in searching each other out and enjoying one another's company.

"Why is that snail on top of that other snail, Mama?"

"They are giving each other piggy back rides! Snails like to do that. Aren't they fun?" Bullet dodged for another day.

Now, I am not an expert on snails or their reproductive habits. They could be asexual, for all I know. But I do know that there were constant piggy-back rides going on in the water, and in just a matter of a week we had some kind of alien-snail egg sacks lining every corner and crevice of that darn tank, and the snails were so busy with their games, that they were forgetting their dietary needs altogether - which meant that I was left to clean the blasted tank again - this time being forced to empty the entire thing, chisel the repulsive egg sacks from their many hiding places and remove the disgusting, sludgy particles from rocks and fake seaweed. 

I have never spent so much time trying to force my brain into it's happy place and failed so completely. It was disgusting. But after about an hour and a few dry heaves, the tank was sparkling and the fish were happy.

A couple of days later, the snails, who must have been very bored and resorted to their old games, had produced another crop of potential young. I was outraged! How dare they commit such an act in a spotless tank?!? I felt like I was living in a science fiction movie and would wake up one night to the sound of an ominous sucking/popping/gushing sound and creep out to the living room to find a mass of jelly-like pods pulsing with giant snails. They would surely hatch and begin oozing shiny trails all over my walls and floor.

Not long afterward, I began avoiding the tank in every way - no wandering glances, give it a good, wide berth when walking past - until Cameron yelled to me in a high-pitched, alarming voice, "Mama! There are baby snails!"

No. Please, no.

Sure enough, there were about thirty million teensy snails, complete with translucent yellow shells stuck all over every wall of the tank.

That was it. I couldn't take it anymore, and I threw the entire thing in the garbage that night. I am not an animal person, and I have no regrets.

And that's why we don't have any pets.

The Phantom Turd Strikes Again

A lot of people in the world have strange things happen to them.  I am no exception.  But the only strange things that ever happen to me revolve around poop.

In order to fully appreciate the story I am about to tell, you need to read this post:

Goin' On A Turd Hunt!

Click on that link, read the post, and then come back.  I'll wait.

La, la, la, la, la....  You back?  OK.

So this morning my four little boys decided to have an exercise in getting along and playing together.  I smiled as they pulled all the blankets off their beds and tromped outside to build a fort on top of the play structure in the backyard. 

I watched them from the kitchen windows as they piled blankets, arranged them just right, and the big boys helped the little ones climb up and hunker down in the fort.

Life is good.

After a while, I heard screaming and figured someone must have fallen off the fort and landed in the wood chips or something.

But no - in comes Drew, screaming and wailing, barefoot with smears of poop on his feet.  

"Drew pooped his pants!", Ethan shouted as he gave Drew a little shove into the kitchen and high-tailed it back outside.

I lifted Drew by the armpits and carried him to the bathtub.  Poor kid thought I was going to give him a cold shower for pooping in his pants and he kept crying, "Scary!  It's scary!"

I assured him that I was not about to punish him because accidents happen, and I began to peel off his clothes.

There was no poop.

No poop in his shorts, no poop in his underwear, no poop between his butt checks.  I told him to bend over, and I inspected his sphincter.  No poop there, either.

Now I get why it was scary - he had someone else's poop on his feet!

I checked Trent's diaper - all was intact and unscathed.

I walked outside and scanned the grass all the way to the fort.  No poop.

I peeked inside the fort and found minor streaks and smears of poop here and there, but no piles or chunks.  It was definitely human poop, judging by the smell. 

We have another missing turd.  

That, or someone finally found the one from last year.

The Bridge Builder

When I was about 18, a family member came to stay at our house, and it became an epic, historical visit. This family member must remain anonymous because if I told you all who it was, there would be prank phone calls and name calling. But it's safe to say that you're all going to know it was a male-type person who made such a fond memory for my family, so we'll call him George.

It was sometime in the afternoon when everything had calmed down in the house and we all got to take a breather before preparations for dinner began. Each of us was going about our business, and George was depositing his particular business in the guest bathroom. No one took notice of this fact until Mom went in to use the facilities right after George.

I was laying on the couch with my nose in a book, as usual, when I heard a strange sort of sneeze-snort come from the bathroom. I looked up and saw my mom open the bathroom door a crack and wave frantically to my sisters and I.

We discreetly left the family room and casually sauntered over to the bathroom door to see what was up with Mom. She had one of those grins on her face that you try to hide with some semblance of dignity, so it ended up looking like a weird pucker-frown.

"Look at this!", she whispered as we all crowded around the toilet to see the biggest turd ever created by man. Or woman, I would hope.

"Aww, that's disgusting! Flush it!"

"I tried!", Mom snorted as she attempted to stop herself from bursting into fits of laughter. "Watch!"

Sure enough, she flushed the toilet and the water swirled around and around the bowl, but the log didn't budge. It was wedged across the gap at the bottom like a bridge, and let me tell ya, it was a sturdy one. Had it been life-size, you could have walked across it without it caving, (but you would have had to jump over the enormous peas sticking out of its surface).

"Flush it again," my sister suggested. "Maybe this time it'll loosen up and go down."

No dice. That thing wasn't going anywhere.

We were spluttering and shaking with our laughter as we tried to find a way out of this predicament. We couldn't just leave it there, because then the house wouldn't show well if we ever decided to move. Plus, we didn't want to humiliate our guest. Something had to be done.

We all just stood there, crowded in the bathroom with tears running down our faces while we covered our mouths with our hands and brainstormed.

I don't remember who's idea it was...Probably Mom's. She's a smart, classy lady.

"Someone go get a coat hanger."

Brilliant.

By this time, we had invested so much time into the project that none of us wanted to miss the grand finale, so we all stayed to watch Mom slice the turd in half with the coat hanger and go for that triumphant flush. With bated breath we watched.... And only half of the bridge went down.

One more flush, and the other half was gone, too. Grand total of about ten flushes and one coat hanger to get that stubborn thing down.

We women bonded that day. We made a memory. We succeeded in performing stellar hostess duties.


Moral of the story?  Always watch your poop go down before leaving the bathroom.

This Is My Life

I had to make a really early run to the bank yesterday morning, (one of those times where you're trying to make a deposit before a check clears and ends up costing you an arm and a leg in fees...). So I had to rouse my kids from bed before they were ready to be awake and herd them into the car.

There were a lot of complaints about it being five in the morning, (it was actually 8:30), and how I wouldn't let them bring pillows. (See? I totally know what it's like to have girls sometimes.)

So we drove to the bank and I pulled into a teller line, filled out my slip, and sent it through the magic chute.

And then I looked in my rear view mirror and saw my nine year old standing up in the back of the van, peeing into a Mt. Dew bottle.

Guess I should have made him go to the bathroom before we left.

Hope the bank teller enjoyed the view.

Click here to read the Friday Flick Pick Premiere and to enter to win a groovy Movie Basket!

Confessions Session: This One's A Doozy

I'm not even sure what could possibly be wrong with me that would make me tell you what I am about to tell you.

You'll be shocked to learn that it has to do with poop.

So if you're visiting from Our Mommyhood or Blog Brew Review, I don't want to scare you off. Feel free instead to read this episode of Confession Session about motorcycles. Or skip the Confession Session altogether and go for a list of why I'm glad school is out, or read this one about how to use your creativity while disciplining your children.

For those of you who are brave enough - let us venture on...

Okay, so this was over a year ago in December when I was still pregnant with my last child, and my sweet mother-in-law had come all the way from Washington to stay with us and help when the baby finally decided to come. I don't' know how I would have done it without her. She kept the kids here at home while Andrew and I were in the hospital, she took the older boys to school every morning, once the baby came she held him and spoiled him rotten whenever I had to run errands, etc. She even arrived two weeks before the baby came to ensure she wouldn't miss his grand entrance.

There was one occasion though, before the baby arrived, when my mother-in-law's presence was a bit uncomfortable. She had just gone into the bathroom for her daily grooming ritual, and suddenly I had to go bad. I mean, I had to go! Problem is, I have one bathroom and my MIL needed a minimum of an hour and a half to complete her hygiene routine.

Why?

I have no idea. I am clueless as to what that woman does in the bathroom for so long. And about the time that my eyes were watering and I knew it couldn't wait anymore, she had only been in the bathroom for about fifteen minutes.

I stood outside the bathroom door trying to imagine what phase she might be in. The water was not yet running in the shower, so was she undressed and on the verge of getting in the shower? Was she pulling faces at herself in the mirror? Medicating? Trimming her nails? Was she in the middle of silent prayer that she could make it through another day without killing me?

I felt like I couldn't knock on the door and ask her to take a time-out and let me in to do my business because she could be in the middle of something important, or, more realistically, it could take her all of two minutes to re-dress and emerge, by which time it would be too late. I didn't have two minutes.

I was rapidly running out of time and had no options. Baby was weighing down on my colon and I had to take care of business like, yesterday.

My eyes flashed to the diaper changing supplies in the living room...

And I ask you - What would you have done?

********************************************

Be sure to visit Our Mommyhood today, where I have written a guest post that you won't want to miss if you have kids home from school this summer!

The Inconvenience of Poop

I am a nervous pooper. Anxiety gets the better of me, and I instantly have diarrhea. This rather inconvenient issue flares up whenever I have to speak in public, when I do something bad and am facing exposure, (yes, this still happens to me), and whenever a certain family member of mine calls on the phone or sends me an e-mail. In fact, just thinking about all this is making my guts rumble.

Excuse me - I'll be right back...

Okay, all better now. Where was I? Oh - right.

So I'm learning to deal with this side effect of my personality, and giving myself an internal therapy session, I suppose it's a sign of weakness. But this is not the case with my husband.

You see, he has the same disease, but his takes effect whenever something needs to be done. Nice, huh?

I ask him for help with the dishes, and POOF! he has to poop. It hits really fast - almost like magic. By the time he emerges, dishes are done.

Today we decided to clean up the backyard, and as I'm headed out the backdoor he hollers to me that he'll be out after he uses the bathroom. He eventually showed up after I had already gotten all the toys put away in the garage, the tent taken down from the boys' backyard camp out, and nearly had the picnic table dragged back to it's proper place.

I've decided that he's brilliant, and next time I get a disease, I'm going to make sure it suits my purpose.

What's In A Name?

Cameron came into the kitchen yesterday and said to me, "Drew is playing with his garbage."

"Whaaat?", I said.

"Drew. Is. Playing. With. His. Garbage.", Cameron said as though I were a small child who wasn't getting it. I wasn't.

"What garbage is he playing in?"

"You know," Cameron said, "his privates?"

"Oh, you mean his junk?"

"Yeah."

I guess I should clarify that Drew is two and was in the bathtub. What two-year-old boy doesn't explore the floaties in the tub?

My concern was over the term Cameron used. We don't beat around the bush here - we call a penis a penis, and having no little girls, we've never had to use the word vagina. But there have been a few times when I was changing Trent's diaper and told him to quit grabbing his junk, (because Trent's favorite thing to do is anything that he knows is bad, and he knows it's bad to grab his poo-covered goods while I'm trying to wipe his bum). So I guess the "junk" term came from me.

We are a crass generation, are we not?

So what words do you use with your kids? Do you teach them anatomically correct terms or do you use other names for their "junk"?

Giving You A Break

There have been so many incidents and stories of poo lately, that when Drew bolted out of the bathroom, dripping wet from his bath and ran down the hallway screaming, "Poop! Poop!", I decided that I wouldn't even go there on the blog. I'm even sparing you the pictures.

However, I will say that there really is no easy way to clean that up.

Confession Session, Volume 1; Pregnancy Tests

I've taken a lot of pregnancy tests in my life. Some hopefully, and some with dread. Timing is everything. For some reason, I've always felt like they are more reliable if you pee into a cup and let the stick sit in it for the thirty seconds or whatever it is, because what if you just peed on the stick and the one drop of urine that had all the HCG hormone in it didn't hit the stick or didn't hit it hard enough to be absorbed?... I know it's a ridiculous way of thinking, but there you go. I needed to be sure.

So one time, I needed to pee into a cup, but I didn't have a disposable one, and for lack of inspiration as to what else to use, I pulled a ceramic mug out of my kitchen cupboard and used that.

I don't remember if I was pregnant or not on that occasion, but I do remember not knowing what to do with the cup afterward. I couldn't toss it because it was one of Andrew's and I didn't know where he'd gotten it or if someone had given it to him or if it had special meaning or if he would even notice it was missing! So what could I do? I washed it and put it back in the cupboard.

That mug is still sitting in my kitchen cabinet, but you can bet that I never drink out of it!

Heads Up!

I know that I just told you that I'd try to stay away from poop stories, but I just bought Drew some big boy underwear and a potty seat. So I'm just warning you that I might have to go back on my word.

In an effort to be more classy, I am switching from poop to farts.

I was walking into a big box store the other day, (I get tired of saying I was going to Wal-Mart - it's as trashy as talking incessantly about bowel movements), and I was carrying Drew on my hip. And because it was Drew and because you never know what you're going to get with Drew, I can't say I was really surprised when he farted on my arm and then in his most incredulous voice he said, "Did you fart??"

I was not about to take the blame for that one, so I told him that, no, I hadn't farted, it was his fart. We argued back and forth all the way into the store, and all the while, Drew kept farting on my arm and denying it.

It reminded me of when I was a teenager and I would go to the grocery store with my Dad. He couldn't seem to pick out a bag of chips without passing gas. And Dad's gas rarely smelled, but it was always as loud as a tuba. He would do the deed and then, in order to pass the blame, he would say, "Bethany!", in the voice of a very disappointed parent. Anyone lingering in the aisle would throw disdainful glances my way and I would flush with undeserved shame.

Again tonight, I was helping Drew into his pajamas and he bent over, farted, and looked at me and proclaimed, "I not fart."

Well, you know what? I am so glad that I finally have a child who doesn't burst into hysterics when they fart, and would rather everyone just pretend that it hadn't happened.

Prodigy and Poop. (I know - enough with the poop stories already.)

This morning at breakfast I was dumbfounded when I saw my nephew, Bryan, take a piece of blueberry poptart and purposefully reach up and place it in his hair, gooey side down. Then he took another, larger piece and put that in his hair, too. When he felt the larger piece slipping towards his forehead, his hand flicked up to it and pushed it down into place. He squashed it down hard enough to be sure that it wouldn't budge, and then he placed both hands back on the tray and serenely stared into space. This all happened in just a few short seconds, and all while I was standing right next to him, jaw hanging open. I felt certain that he was bound for the short bus to kindergarten.

After we cleaned up that mess, I sat in the living room, watched him play for a minute, and then said, "Bryan, I will give you five dollars if you only poop once today." And I meant it, too. Bryan looked at me as if to say, "You're on." And then we both went about our business.

You see, Bryan has some kind of over-active digestive system, and he has anywhere from three to six bowel movements during the ten and a half hours I watch him each weekday. Then he goes home and acts completely normal, only averaging two BM's a day on the weekends. I think he hates me.

So, imagine my surprise when I changed Bryan's diaper before his morning nap and there was no need for the baby wipes I had armed myself with! That could very well be a first. I think Bryan is smarter than I gave him credit for at breakfast. If he keeps this up, he'll be stuck with the burden of deciding if he wants to spend his cash on some binkie bling or a lollipop the size of his head.

Maybe his antics at breakfast were just a sign of artistic repression, and we need to break out the pudding paints. Not until spring when we can do it outside though.

The new view from my kitchen window

Bryan, my nephew, has issues with his bowels. He is just over a year old and has never quite learned to consolidate his poop into one dirty diaper a day. He delights us all with his digestive efforts thrice a day, on average.

There was one day when he pooped 6 times, and my sister got here just in time to pick him up, because I was about 4 seconds from tying him in a plastic bag and putting him out at the curb.

So today, I congratulated him twice - once when I changed his diaper at 9:00 and again at 12:00, and found NO POOP! I was pretty ecstatic. But I paid for it later because he had apparently decided to save all of his normal BM shows for just the 3 o'clock curtain call. It was the kind of poop that clears a room and everyone shouts from the kitchen, "What did that kid eat?!", as their eyes water and they choke down the acidic remains of their lunch. It was so bad that I had a tough time mustering up the courage to actually release the tabs of his Huggies and unveil the dreaded contents. The entire house stunk by the time I decided that it could be put off no longer. Every time he moved someone would groan and pull their entire face inside their shirt.

When it came right down to it, it wasn't so bad. I was thankful for the clothespin I had on hand. And the kid really doesn't chew his vegetables very well. Andrew decided to be chivalrous and take the diaper right out to the trash can for me, so I bagged it with the kitchen trash and sent him outside.

And then, friends, I went to the kitchen sink to wash my hands, and I looked out the window, where my Garbage-Toting Knight was standing in the backyard, grinning at me and forming a giant, powdery snowball.

I thought, surely he wouldn't do that. There's no way he would be thick enough to throw a snowball at the flimsy glass window that's been in the frame since 1960?

He cocked his arm back, and with the inevitable catastrophe staring me in the face, I slowly smiled and watched the look on my dear husband's face as he broke the kitchen window.

He stood there in the yard wearing the most horrified look I have ever seen on him. It was the funniest thing I'd seen all day. And that includes Drew staring at some Christmas ornaments while walking through Wal-Mart with me and running smack into a display of candles.

It's unfortunate, my sweetheart's perfect aim and his lack of appreciation for his own strength, but I am easily able to laugh at the whole situation on account of there being two panes on the kitchen window and the extra hours Andrew's been working this weekend. Mostly I'm just glad it wasn't my fault.

That strange new feeling.

Of late, I have been experiencing a foreign phenomenon where my abdomen causes me much discomfort and pain.  I, admittedly, have hypochondriasis tenancies, and was originally convinced that a tumor was growing on my ovary, probably the left one, and that I surely had no more than a year to live.  Then I realized that I needed to change my bathroom reading.  The only options in the drawer next to the toilet were some book on the Navajo, a VW Club newsletter, (which I have already read several times), or The Christmas Shoes, which is a book based on the depressing country song where a kid buys a pair of shoes for his dying mother on Christmas Eve so that she'll look beautiful if she were to meet Jesus that night.  The mother in the book is dying of ovarian cancer, or uterine cancer, I don't remember which, but apparently it made an impression.  I am now considering seeking professional help, but not for my imagined tumor. 


So it hits me one day that maybe I conjured up my terminal disease because I had been spending too much time in the bathroom reading that stupid book.  When was the last time that I produced anything during my visits to the toilet, anyway?  Am I supposed to be keeping track of how many bowel movements I have in, say, a week?  I thought that was something that you only did with infants?  I feel certain that I've made a deposit during each trip, but does it matter how much you give, or just how often?  Can you be constipated if you've been going regularly?  (Yes, Heidi and Kitti, I am talking to you because there is no way I'm calling a doctor to ask!)  I've always been the type who could just let the fruit ripen and fall from the tree.  Thirty seconds, in and out, no effort required.  That's why I think that my self-diagnosis of constipation must be accurate because yesterday I found myself using birthing techniques to eliminate the brick that was lodged somewhere in my lower intestine.  Pull knees up to chest, tuck chin and push like hell for the count of ten.  Take breath, resume pushing.  And so on and so forth.  I was pleased to find that when it was all over and done with, I did not require stitches, but was disgusted that for all my hard work, I had passed a pitiful excuse for a bowel movement, (although I swear it had corners), and that I had earned a hemorrhoid.  At least, I think that's what it was, and if not, then the hypochondriasis is about to take over again.  I stood there in the bathroom wondering what it would feel like to ride in a car for twelve hours next week with an mn'm type thing resting on the edge of my sphincter.  Thankfully, I will not have to find out, because the bulge has since disappeared. 


I am a notorius hater of water.  It doesn't taste like Dr. Pepper or Cherry Coke, therefore, it must be bad.  I drink mostly soda, a little milk, and occasionally some juice or Crystal Lite.  But when I really think about it, I don't drink a lot of those either.  I am not an idiot, so I know that my poor hydration habits are not helping with my dry skin or migraines, and that is probably the exact cause of my constipation.  When I was younger, my body probably dealt with it just fine, and with age comes a realization that I have turned my digestive system into a sewer treatment plant. 


So what do I do?  Do any of you have tips?  Let me tell you right now that I'm not ready to give up the soda or the pop, (both being the same thing - but I wanted to make sure that everyone from every U.S. geographical region knew to what I was referring), because I'm just not there.  Might not ever be.  But I need some good ways to make sure I drink a lot of water along with my Dr. Pepper.  Water alone is gross, especially our city water.  Does it count as drinking water if you add something to it?  And what do you add that won't give you cancer?  (Again with the hypochondriasis.)  Aspartame is bad, right?  Help me out here, people, my body is begging you!

Goin' On a Turd Hunt!

This is a graphic post. Consider yourself warned.

So what do you do when your oldest child comes in the back door with his pants around his ankles, and looks up at you and says, "I accidentally pooped my pants,"?

You laugh. Because what are the other options, really?

So, with pants around ankles, he hobbled into the bathroom and, knowing that I would be the sole member of the disaster clean-up team, I followed him. I told him to carefully remove his pants and underwear. So, of course, he pulled one foot out of his pants and then flipped and shook his other leg out while I ducked for cover. Much to my relief, nothing flew out, but then I began to wonder where the smoking gun was? My olfactories were telling me that there ought to be a pretty hefty "chunk" sitting there in my son's drawers, but there was only "trace evidence", shall we say?

Well, crap. ('Scuse the pun.) We had a missing turd.

I went outside, where Andrew was firing up the grill, and told him that there had definitely been an accident, but that I couldn't find the remains. I asked Cameron where he was when he had done the deed, and he indicated that he had been over by the fence looking for grasshoppers. I asked him if that was where he pulled his pants down. "Yes", was the reply. Then I asked him why he had pulled his pants down. "Because I didn't want to feel the poo," he said. Well, we had to find the thing because there are a toddler and two babies that play out there. We walked over to the fence and I told Cameron to show me which way he had gone back to the house. My dear, precious son then pantomimed pulling his pants down and hopped like a rabbit back to the house. I just stood there and laughed until tears rolled down my cheeks. No wonder the thing was missing - it had flopped out somewhere on the bunny trail.

Andrew recruited Ethan to help in the search, and being the fun dad that he is, he offered a prize to the finder of the poo and began to sing, "Goin' on a turd hunt, gonna have a good time!"

We laughed ourselves silly while carefully picking through the grass. We never did find anything, which is highly disturbing. We'll just have to check our shoes whenever we come inside for a while.