Poopy Realities

I had to write this post in the midst of all of my charming, picturesque Christmas photos to remind you that my life is not perfectly pleasant and cheery all of the time. I don't want to be a complainer and a whiner but I don't want my blog to be full of fakey-ness either. Which is why I will tell you that though a Christmas at the cabin is tons of fun and somewhat larger than life, it does involve mice droppings all around and TONS of work and preparation on the part of the Mama.

Let me just tell you what King Jo and I ended up doing the very moment that Colter was out snowshoe-ing and proposing to Anna on Christmas Day ("How do I kneel with a snowshoe on?")

We were cleaning up poo.

In fact, I felt as though our entire Christmas day revolved around poo. During the present-opening Justus lived up to his nickname "Combustus" and let loose so much that we had to give him a little washbasin bath in front of the fire. He did this at least twice that day. Ali needed help wiping at least twice that day too. But the worst was Jeremiah David, who decided to follow in the steps of big sis and take his diaper off at naptime. I never expected it from him since he is our loving, compliant child who can't stand to have us mad at him and asks for hugs thousands of times a day. He doesn't even know how to take off clothes yet! But, I guess he was bored upstairs all alone and he took off his pants somehow and his poopy diaper, unbeknownst to us. I asked King Jo to get him when we heard him talking up there and my hubby brought a little bare-bottomed boy down the stairs. He told me that he had taken off his diaper, but it was just wet as he didn't see any poo. The others smelled something awful, but we figured that Jer had just passed gas as his Daddy began to put a new diaper on. My mom's dog licked my hubby's shoe but he wasn't sure why and shooed her away.

I decided to go up and see if he had wet on his blankets. What I discovered was HORRIBLE indeed and I hope none of you ever have to deal with this! Because the halls upstairs are very dim and not all of the lights work, King Jo had unwittingly overlooked the fact that Jer had thrown a poopy (not just wet) diaper and that his portable crib, blankets, and clothing was smeared with it. There was also a puddle of piddle on the carpeted floor and one of Daddy's shirts had been wet on. But wait....things get much worse! Of course my hubby had to step right in the big poop on the floor, not realizing it, and proceed to track it all the way down the hallway, down a huge flight of wooden stairs, through the enormous cabin kitchen, down to the living room where the diapers were, back through the living room to the bathroom, etc. etc. Not only that but he had let Jer touch some of his toys and sit on the kitchen table, not knowing Jer had probably played in poop. When I discovered it and screamed my horror, we took quick action to clean Jer up and set him in time-out and clean up the damage..... but it was awful. We both had it on our shoes and it would not come off with scrubbing so we had to bag our shoes up and carry them home where they finally came clean after two rounds in the washer. Josiah had to scrub icky, old, mice-poop laden carpet by hand all up and down the cabin hallways upstairs for over an hour (where's our steam cleaner when we need it?), using a flashlight to search out his poopy footprints, of which he found about twenty. I had to scrub poopy footprints throughout the downstairs, spitting bullets under my breath about the fact that men are so unobservant and wondering if anyone was looking for a two-year old to take in. There is a water shortage at teh cabin, but I had to use lots of water to submerge the entire pack n' play in the bathtub and wash all the toys he had touched. Meanwhile my parents sat in the lower living room, holding the baby for me and being extra thankful that they are beyond this stage of life. King Jo said that we would laugh about it someday and that Jer is such a precious little guy in spite of this one incident but at the moment I wasn't easily convinced! It just doesn't seem that funny when the trail of poo fills not just one room but goes througout an enormous cabin and you have very little cleaning supplies on hand and a headcold/sinus infection going on! I've spent many, many a day scrubbing out cribs and carpet that Ali smeared with poo and I thought my days of that were over! Why me? Most of my friends and my mom claim their kids NEVER took off a poopy diaper and smeared it around! One of my friends went so far as to say that only "mentally disturbed" kids she knew did that. Oh joy!

As we scrubbed I thought of my starry-eyed brother, out getting engaged and how many moments like this are in store for he and his wife. Life is very hard sometimes, especially with kids! And my brother wants to have a literal dozen! However, after watching my servant-hearted hubby take responsibility for his accidental mess and scrub poopy carpets for a long time, and even laugh about it, and after getting some hugs and some apologies from my little chocolate-eyed, tiny boy, I realized yet again that marriage and parenthood are worth it even when the reality of poop sets in!