Some Girls Have all the Fun

I believe I have heard of a blog that is called "Poop and Boogers." A blog only a mother could love, I would say. And if ever there was a mom blog post, this is it. As a matter of fact, today's post could be a guest post on a blog called "Poop and Poop." Why would I want to write about such an, uh, odoriferous subject? Well, because of the sheer magnitude of the story. Which probably will evoke more than a few "Cool story, bro." comments, at least in the minds of the beautiful people who post Facebook status updates about traveling to international countries, and spying Bruce Springsteen at a trendy little place in Soho. But, I know that there are at least one or two readers among my five readers that will be able to appreciate this.

Believing that there are entirely enough blogposts in the world about potty training, I have kept related things to a minimum. After all, this started out being a blog about decluttering, and quickly devolved into one about whatever happened to be on my mind at the time. Or maybe it evolved.

Having four children for quite some time, and then tagging on a splendid fifth, some of the details of events from the early years were forgotten, and experienced with the little guy as New, and sometimes Improved. Potty training was most certainly New, but I wouldn't call it Improved because it didn't seem to come naturally to us this time. Eventually we received help from some Magic People called Kelly and Kelly, and in a week, voila, peeing and pooping into the right place (and more importantly, not into the wrong place) like a pro. They told me that kids can have accidents for even as long as a year after training. My fuzzy brain remembered no more than .6 accidents between all four of the olders in the collective years after they were trained, but I knew things could be a little different this time.

So, yeah, a few accidents. Sometimes it's just too dern fun to keep playing Angry Birds, and the couch is just as convenient, or moreso, than the bathroom which is like 20 feet away. Sometimes we try to get there, but don't quite make it. All in a day's work, right? Yep.

But then came last night.

Last night, I stayed up way way past anyone's bedtime because I was balancing the "checkbook." Another someone had been in charge of this activity, but possibly had done it that loosey-goosey way that includes kinda looking at it to see that it's about right. Apologies to Loosey-Goosey if more effort was put into it. But, according to the little "reconciled" column, nothing had been officially reconciled for over a year. Once I FINALLY figured out how to use this particular money program's reconcile feature, I was excited to move it along and catch up to the current statement. So, I was hard at work late last night. Went to bed, knowing it would be a short night, but didn't know it would be as short as it was.

Splendid Boy comes into our room every night/morning at some point and finishes out his Splendid Sleep in our bed. Many nights he is dry, top to bottom. Lately, we've been have some wetness in the bottom area. I'm pretty good at taking care of business while asleep, so I can pretty much help him into dry things and into our bed while my eyes are closed. But this morning, I got a little whiff of something, so I gingerly reached around behind him and could feel a sort of bulge. Well, these things happen. I got up and opened my eyes, and also my nose and realized we had a Major Incident on our hands. I was so flustered, I went into Anna-Jessie's room and woke her up for the day. (Turns out it was only 5:30 a.m., but I had thought it said 6:30. She forgave me.)

I don't know quite what happened in there. But it required stripping the bed, stripping the boy, scrubbing him down in the bathtub, and believe me, scrubbing was required, then pre-washing the blanket and sheet like someone who has to do all the laundry by hand in the river. All I could say was wow. And how? And wow. Scrubbed him off, dressed him and tossed him into bed with Greg. Finished the hand pre-washing, then lugged everything down to the washing machine and threw it all in. Ran back up and scrubbed the mattress. Scrubbed up like I was heading to surgery (I know how to do this because I have been watching ER lately). Finally fell back into bed for a little while.

What's the point of this story? I suppose I'm just noticing how I took this all in stride. I remember when the big kids were little and how stressed out I was most of the time. I suppose that is understandable since there were four of them, and one of me, and they were little question machines, and I always wanted to give great, educational, complete answers to their questions. Plus, enjoy this time that everyone said was going to go really fast but seemed to me to be dragging along. Looking back, it really did fly, and if anything, time has sped up even more, but I *think* I have begun to learn to enjoy the journey. Even when it involves middle-of-the-night poopfests. Not to worry. It's much more the exception than the rule that there is an accident at night and the fact is, Splendid Boy is such a blessing to us, so my plan is to savor all of it.

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