My Watercooler

Warning: Don’t try this at home.

I knew things were going to be bad, as far as naps go, because he didn’t poop all day yesterday.  Whenever he goes a day without pooping, the next day is followed by a day without a nap.  Don’t ask me why, but it’s true.  He holds all his poop in until about an hour into his nap, and then lets it “rip”, sort of speak. And there’s nothing I can do about it.  A couple of times I’ve gone in and caught him with poop, changed his diaper and left victorious thinking, “Ah ha, I’ve done it.  Now he’ll sleep.”  But instead, he poops again, and I don’t find out until I go in after his two hours are up.

Today, about thirty minutes before his two hours were up (When he doesn’t nap, I make him stay in there for two hours.  He doesn’t mind.  In fact he and Zebra have a grand old time planning my demise.), he got quiet.  And I thought, “No way.  He’s fallen asleep.”  I was so convinced that at the two-hour mark I snuck to his bedroom, and inched the door open expecting to find him snoozing away.  Umm, guess again.  Instead I found him sitting up looking like a character out of “Lord of the Flies” with his sleep sack tossed aside, poop smeared from his ankles all the way up his thighs, all over his hands, on his nose, in his hair, and smeared in a very Pablo Picasso way all over his sheet.  He looks up and says, “I’m painting with poop, Mommy.”  It took everything inside of me not to laugh because obviously I don’t want to encourage this behaviour.

So I say to him, “Stand up please, and don’t touch me.”

“Why?”

“Umm, well, I don’t want to get poop on me.”

“Why?”

“It’s a tad messy. Let’s get in the bath.”

“Why?”

“To get the poop off of you.”

I turn on the water, and immediately put him in the bath with his diaper  (Yeah, his diaper was still on when I found him.  I guess he reached into his diaper and pulled the poop out in order to “paint” with it) and t-shirt still on.  I take his diaper off, pull his shirt over his head and of course there’s no way of avoiding getting poop on his shirt because his hands are covered in it.  He sits quite happily playing in the tub while I pick up pieces of poop one by one on his floor, wipe it off his crib, and scoop up the remaining poop with his sheet.  Meanwhile, August is now splashing water outside of the tub.

“August, please don’t splash water outside the tub.”

“Why?”

“It makes the floor slippery.”

I open up the window because it reeks in his room, and finish getting the poop out of his hair.  Then we get out of the tub, and put on a new diaper.  We put on his slippers, head downstairs to empty the sheet of poop into the garbage, and soak the sheet in the washing machine.  August again, happily plays in the backyard with a piece of wood that happened to be lying on the grass (we share our backyard with our neighbors).

“August, please don’t touch the wood with your hands.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll get splinters.” (Of course, I don’t REALLY think he’ll get splinters)

“I got splinters.”

“What?  Seriously, in that little time?  No, you couldn’t have.” (I’ve never even used the word “splinters” in his presence before)

“I did.”

“Let me see.” Sure enough, splinters.  That all happened in one hour.  Amazing.

Now I go back upstairs, grab a bowl of warm soapy water and a pair of tweezers.  It’s 4:35pm, so I also grab a beer.  I text Brent to let him know that happy hour had begun.  We get two out of the eight splinters out of his hand. An hour later, Brent leaves early – guess I scared him.  He comes home, and although August still has several splinters left in his hand, and I’m still soaking the sheet, we all lived happily ever after.

The end.  Happy Friday everyone.

Tags: drinking, happy hour, Lord of the Flies, Pablo Picasso, poop, SAHM, splinters, toddlers and poop

This entry was posted on April 27, 2012 at 7:21 pm and is filed under Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.