It always, always comes down to poo. No one can escape it,
and if you try you just end up with one hell of a stomach ache. I wish though, boy
do I wish, that I was only ever responsible for my own poo. Because, let’s face
it, dealing with other people’s poo just stinks.
The Kiddo and I were recent guests at a good friend’s house
for a playdate. I was having a pretty good time. Drinking tea, catching up,
talking about other people and judging. You know, the usual fare for a
playdate. My conversation about the Real Housewives of Vancouver was just
getting rolling, but I could not concentrate because somewhere, someone’s child
was screaming bloody murder. This child was carrying on like she was being made
to watch the McLaughlin group on repeat. You know that whole Darwin hoopla about survival of the fittest?
Well, I failed. I am not the fittest. My genome is going absolutely fucking
nowhere. Because while that child was screaming all I could think about was why
one of the other mothers’ didn’t go attend to her child. I seemed to have
missed the class in prenatal education where they tell you about how mothers
are able to recognize the cries of their own child. Yes, it was The Kiddo, MY
Kiddo, who was screaming.
I go downstairs into the basement expecting blood. But there
was no blood. There was poo. There was poo on the bathroom floor and the Kiddo
was standing there screaming at the poo. I cleaned up the poo. Easy. Simple. No
sweat. But no, this poo was not just a floor poo. It was a back of the pants,
back of the underwear 100 wiper poo.
There was poo on the princess dress the Kiddo was wearing. My daughter
shit on another little girl’s princess dress. There was poo on the socks. There
was, surprisingly, poo in the toilet. Now, I’m no stranger to cleaning up other
people’s excrement, and not just because I am a mom. In my other life I am a
nurse, and as any nurse will tell you, poo is a part of the job. I have cleaned
up a patient who hadn’t shit for a week and then exploded one night at 1am. I
have scraped poo-encrusted socks off of a patient. You can guess what the rest
of him was like. Here’s the thing though: in the hospital you are equipped with
many an anti-poo tool.
- Gloves
- Warm wipes
- Clove oil to block the smell
- Scissors to cut off poo clothes
- Help
- Face mask
- Monetary compensation (i.e. not hugs and unconditional love)
And if it’s really bad you just bundle everything up,
blankets and all and throw it in the garbage for housekeeping to burn.
I start in on the Kiddo. I manage to get the dress off but
in the process smear crap all the way up her back to her shoulder blades. I try
stepping her towards the bath but every step she takes more poo falls onto the
floor which results in more screaming. Because apparently the worse part of
this is that the floor is getting dirty. I wrap the raped princess dress into a
ball of shame and look around for some cleaning supplies. I have half a roll of
1-ply toilet paper, a box of tissue, and a low flow toilet. Stupid, dumb, fucking
environmentally friendly toilets. Stupid David Suzuki. That thing was just
daring me to clog it. So into the bath the Kiddo went. I looked around for a
wash cloth. There were tons. All white. Fuck. So I used my hand. I used my
clean, bare hand to wipe the poo from my daughter’s butt. Finally she stopped
screaming to point out to me that “there’s lots of poo floating mommy”. Yes, my
Kiddo was clean but the tub was not. I herded the delinquent poo particles to
the drain, again with my bare hands.
Everything finally looked clean. I checked for a towel.
There were tons. And they were all fucking white. Fuckidy fuck fuck fuck. Poo
is sneaky. The chances of getting that white towel dirty were pretty high. But
I had had enough. I wrapped the 10 000 count Egyptian Snow White Cotton towel
around the Kiddo and hoped for the best. We went upstairs where I kindly
explained to my friend that I would be taking the princess dress home to “repair”
some “damages” and asked if I could borrow a full set of clothing. Because what
good mother goes out of the house without a change of clothes?
On the way home the Kiddo went on and on about how much fun
she had at her friend’s house. Apparently, shitting on the floor and having
someone else clean it up is her idea of a good time. Seriously. My life is an
episode of Jackass, minus everything except the poo.