After that last post, and the subsequent awkward silence in the comments section, I was quite determined to fashion a much more coherent post for today. Because meta? My embarrassing confession is being embarrassed by last post’s embarrassing confession. And not quite being able to escape that bloggy tar baby, I am embarrassed by confessing the embarrassment of the embarrassment. Oh the shame of causing an awkward internet silence. Hear that? That there is more awkward silence. Enjoy! I made it just for you.
Anyway, with cheeks aflame, I tell you that I picked out my future post title (which I never usually do) two days ahead of time: “Anne! Now With 20% More Sanity!” and was kind of praying for events to follow in line with that mentality.
But subsequent days have been filled with things like my children’s version of Mad Max Thunderdome. Only theirs occurred in the bathtub: Two kids enter, 1 kid poops!
4 year old: Mommmmmmmmm! The baby pooped in the bathtub!!
Baby: Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Poooooooooooop! Whaaaaaaaaaa!
Me: What? When?
4 year old: I dunno. A few minutes ago? The poop is everywhere! And it got on all the toys!”
It was so. gross. And what to do? Take them out? They are covered in poop! Shower them off? Where? The tub is covered in poop! And also? The delicate balance of not traumatizing the baby (e.g. “don’t touch that! Ewwwww! Pooop!”) because I want her to both poop and bathe without fear, but also not allowing her to use the poop like play-doh, which seems to be what she wants to do.
I ended up draining the tub because I did not particularly want to go fishing for wiley fecal matter as it bobbed in the water between rubber duckies and mermaid hair. Then I wiped a lot of the poop off the tub floor, using the baby’s worn-but-not-used diaper. But then I was overwhelmed by one solid chunk of poop that went down the drain and decided to rest on the drain grid. Unwilling to try to pinch it out (because I draw the line at pinching out turds that are not my own) I finally pushed it through the grade with a hell of a lot of paper towels wrapped around my finger. I hope that does not come back to haunt me.
And then I just gave up with the toys. And by ‘gave up’ I pretty much mean retched a little and decided I would either throw them away or buy an econo-vat of bleach at the store. And then fill the entire tub, contents and all, with that bleach. Until then, the tub is off limits like our own personal crime scene.
So in summary, the world is not yet sanity-friendly for Anne-kind yet. Maybe next week. Till then, my friends? Blarg-larlll-alaoooool!
16 Responses to “Oh Poop.”
Been there, done that, and…yeah, pretty much salvaged what toys I could, bleached the hell out of them, and sneakily threw others away. And that one turd that doesn’t want to just go down the drain? Yeah, pushed it through, just like you did. It’s all cool, and…depending on how old the baby is, look for it to happen at least once more. Sorry for that bit of news, but, with all my kids, I have never, ever had one just poop in the tub once.
Hee! I’ve been there with both kids. Only the push-it-through method doesn’t work for us because we have a gray water line. So, I admit it. I pinched the poop. Go ahead and ridicule me.
I am karmically (is that even a word?) concerned in that I have a 5 year old boy and a 13 month old boy and neither of them have pooped in the tub yet. (And I promise that I truly do give them a bath at least every other night). Is there just a massive fecal blowout waiting for me? I am guessing it will happen when I have cramps and a migraine and one or both kids are melting down…..
I must admit, I’m an admirer from afar. I think I got your address through a friend of mine’s blog. I am currently 30 weeks pregnant, so I enjoy (well, maybe not so much enjoy as much as getting prepared) your posts immensely. At any rate – your story reminded me of a tale my Mom tells. When we were little, my younger brother and I used to bathe together. On several occasions I ended up streaking out of the tub, skinny, naked limbs a’flyin, hollering, “Mom, Clint pooped in the tub again!” So, fair warning as your last two comments indicated – it’s gonna happen again. Good luck. (I know I’ll need it when the time comes.)
Yep, it’s happened to me before too…I just put the toys in the wash machine with some clothes soap. That worked pretty well actually. You could try that?
We have a tub pooper too! My hubby actually caught a poop in his hand as he & baby girl were in the tub one time. Thank god I wasn’t home for that one.
Now if I could only cure Suzy from peeing in the tub…
I haven’t had the pleasure yet, but my baby sister was a tub pooper. We all–we were 6, 5, and 3–thought it was the coolest thing ever. “Look, Mommy! Corn!”
And honestly, I didn’t comment before because of anything you did. I was just busy. But I know what you mean. Anytime I have dead silence on a post, I immediately think it was something I said.
I commented! Isn’t it there? Or maybe Karl was talking about poop yesterday, too.
I have no problem with the poop talk, and engage in it regularly.
Crazy8s – you, my friend, are a genius. Washing machine!
Cole has pooped in the tub once. I tried to scoop it all our with a little plastic cup while the tub was draining, but I ultimately had to push some through. OOgieee! Luckily, they were floaters, not loose, so it didn’t really get on much.
Yeah… so far one for each of the two older. One INCIDENT each, I should clarify…. multiple turd in the tubby each incident.
This youngest one really owes me a break though…. I’m hoping she refrains.
Buy some cleaner spray with bleach and spray the whole thing down and let it sit for an hour or a day. Rinse liberally. Ta-da! My son NEVER pooped in the tub unless we were visiting my mother. Take embarrassing and add a factor of 10 when your child shits in your mother’s infinitely clean tub.
I’m sitting here cracking up at your misfortune, and though I feel guilty for it I can’t help it. Why must all your trauma be of the hilarious variety?
Oh, man! I may actually be glad that we only have showers in this house (no tub–which usually sucks, because there is nothing like a hot bubble bath and a glass of wine after a day with the kidlets)….I say bleach the hell out of it, Rinse, and Repeat.
Gotta love the poop stories. Reminded me of our son when he was about 15 months old: http://www.justinrummel.com/News/article/sid=151.html
he’s now 3, but since we’re expecting another little boy in July, I’m sure it will happen at least one more time again. Nice thing is when our kid did it, there weren’t any toys or solids. And you can believe I bleached the HELL outa that tub afterwards!
[...] and instead I just want to tell you the peripheral pain-in-the-ass accoutrement. Like that, as soooo many of you said (and yet I really, really didn’t want to believe) there is now always poop! or the fear! of! poop! in the tub. Because I guess of all the things [...]