Poop happens

Some of you know me better than others and if you knew me way back when, you know I used to have quite a potty mouth. The swearing peaked in middle school, tapered off in junior high and high school (I didn’t want to be THAT girl) and stopped almost completely at BYU (swearing not being the thing to do in Provo, obviously). Now that I am a mother I do my absolute best never to swear in front of my children, because nobody wants to hear a four year old saying “Oh, crap!” But I still occasionally swear when under severe distress.

So here I am bathing my two daughters, sweet things, and my little Claire gets a funny look on her face and lifts up one tiny bottom cheek. I think: “She’s not going to poop in the bathtub. She’s NOT going to poop in the bathtub! Oh, my gosh! She’s going to poop in the bathtub! Oh, bleep!”

And it was just like one of my favorite jokes from elementary school: three guys meet a genie and she promises change them into whatever they wish if they will only jump off a cliff and shout their wish out loud. The first guy runs off the cliff and yells “eagle” and flies away. The second guy jumps off the cliff and shouts "hawk" and flies away. The third guy, an individual of low intelligence, obviously, runs toward the cliff and trips at the edge. He yells, “Oh, bleep!” and plops to the ground in a smelly heap.

Just as I say “Bleep!” out loud two little poops float up behind Claire and head straight toward Audrey who exits the bathtub with superhuman speed (the instinct to avoid touching poop runs deep, and my screaming might have been some motivation).

I was briefly paralyzed by my revulsion. Audrey was safe on the bathmat, but Claire was watching the poops bob along and reached out to grab one. She stopped – my screaming might have been some motivation – and I grabbed her and threw both girls into the shower to wash them off. And then I did something that will probably haunt me for the rest of my life. I guess you aren’t really a supermom until you are fishing poop out of the bathtub with your bare hands. And then what do you do after your baby poops in the bath and you have to clean it up with YOUR BARE HANDS? Burn down the house, seal off the bathroom forever, chop off your hand? (Obviously not a good idea, no hand to spare, but I’m typing this so, relax, I didn’t do it).

Of all the magical abilities out there, making poop appear just by saying it out loud is not the one I would choose. But I will never forget Audrey’s lightning-fast reaction (my toys! my toys!) or Claire’s strategic cheek lift. And I have always loved that joke. I’d like to sum up this story by vowing I'll never to say that word again, but that would be a lie.