Poop happens.

“I did some poop! Mommy, that poop looks like a train! The poop looks like a train!  It looks like a train!  MOMMY!  The poop looks like a train!” 

Those are the sounds that kept coming out of my bathroom just now until I finally and dutifully walked in, peered down into the toilet, and commented approvingly to my 3-year-old.  It seems that poop is now all too often the topic of conversation in our house, even dinner conversation.  My children are pretty casual about poop too.  That became apparent to me a while ago when I changed my child’s dirty diaper and he asked, “Is it a good one?”  He must have learned talk like that from his father.  I have become desensitized to such things, but if you have not then now is the time to STOP READING.   (Disclaimer: I have just been told this is the grossest post ever.  You have been warned.)

I am amazed at all the different kinds of nastiness I have had to touch with my hands since I have had children.  Snot, spit, throw-up, pee and poop… all over them, all over me, and unfortunately sometimes all over the couch  (you may not want to wear your best pants when you come over).  I thanked God that I had hardwood floors when my firstborn Thomas had rotavirus and it affected both ends.  But I didn’t know true grossness until my youngest, Percy, came along.  He has created some doozies.  Like the time he managed to get off his pants, take off his diaper, and then urinate and have a loose bowel movement on the floor… and proceeded to play in it.  Thankfully he missed the carpet, but not his brother’s cardboard Thomas the Tank Engine puzzle.  I had to throw it away, and it left his big brother deeply upset.  He talked about it for months, poor guy, and would walk around muttering to himself, “No, you can’t play with the Thomas puzzle, Percy pooped on it.”

Percy also likes to go digging for gold in his diaper, and if I don’t get to him fast enough he will retrieve nuggets and then leave them on the floor.  More than once big brother Thomas has picked up some mysterious object and walked up to me asking, “What is this?”  

I once overheard the following conversation between my oldest and his Daddy (in italics).  “Oh no.”    “What?”    “There’s poop on the carpet.”     ”EEEEEWWWW!  I don’t want to play in THAT!!!!”

I recently found a trail of some of the offending objects, and followed it all the way to my youngest son who had it smeared on his feet and was walking all over my house.  I am a germophobe so this sent me into a huge tizzy, not knowing what he had walked on with those poop feet.  I could not get my house clean enough after that.  I wanted to sanitize EVERYTHING in case it had been touched by the offending poop.  Another time he managed to mash some onto the wheel of his ride-on toy and was ramming the toy into my furniture.  Over.  And over.  And over…

Grossed out yet?  Oh but it gets better!  The worst habit that Percy has is fishing in the toilet.  We have to leave the door shut or he will make a huge mess.  I once walked in to the bathroom and realized with horror the following:  the door had been left open… and Percy had played in the toilet… and the toilet had not been flushed… and Percy had played with the pee-pee toilet paper… and there was wet toilet paper all over my bathroom… and in my hallway… and IN PERCY’S MOUTH!! 

He eats some gross stuff, that boy.  I have caught him more than once getting wet diapers out of the trash can and sucking on them.  For real.    *pause*   You know what, I think I am just going to stop here.  I am grossing myself out.  And I have the overwhelming urge to go give Percy a bath and brush his teeth.