Poop...

One of the ways being a parent changes you is that you are no longer disgusted by the most disgusting things. Only a parent can wipe a kids runny nose with their bare fingers, or wipe up puke, or poop without a second thought. This does take some getting used to. With my first son, I would gag when changing some stinky diapers, but by the time the second baby came along, nothing could phase me.

Children are disgusting little humans. They don't think twice about doing the most disgusting things: putting maple syrup in the grape juice and DRINKING it, eating the skin off their feet or their finger nails or their boogers, smelling their dirty socks for fun, pooping in the bathtub - I could keep going but I think you get my point. Perhaps boys are worse than girls in the gross-out department, and if that is the case, I am in a world of trouble. Kids just seems to be gross and parents seem to get immune to how disgusting their progeny is.

After three boys, I consider myself a war veteran of disgusting things. I thought nothing could phase me until I met my match yesterday. I put Ellis down for his daily nap -one nap a day for about 3 hours - at 12:15. My husband came home about 12:45 and heard him up there still moving around and talking and asked if he should get him up. I said no because he hadn't slept yet, so we left him alone. At 4:30 I went up stairs to get him up, so we could leave to go to Ethan's guitar lessons. When I walked into his room, I was shocked and disgusted. Ellis was still sound asleep in his bed, but he was naked from the bottom down. He had removed his shorts and his diaper, dumped the poop from the diaper onto his bed and then curled up at the other end of his crib. He had peed during his nap and had poop EVERYWHERE. He had chunks of it on his arm, and hit shirt had clumps, it was in his long curly hair, even his blankie was sopping wet, and I had exactly 15 minutes to get him cleaned up and in the car to get to the lesson on time. Of course, my husband had gone back to work, so I was on my own.

I ran to the bathroom started the tub, gathered the soap, washcloth, and towel. Went back and used the diaper to clean up (through the gagging and cursing under my breath) as much of the poop as I could , and woke up Ellis and undressed him the rest of the way in the crib. I left the crib mess to be cleaned up when I got home later in the evening. I then threw his disgusting blankie off the balcony so I could put it in the washing machine before we left the house (because Ellis won't go to bed without it and it had to be clean ASAP), and carried the toddler at arm's-length to the bath. It took me 10 minutes of soaping and scrubbing to get all of the caked on poop off of this child - it had dried on since he had clearly been sleeping in it for the three hour nap. The bathtub remnants looked like a battlefield - of a battle I barely won. Of course, earlier in the day I had taken his laundry downstairs and washed it while he was napping, so I had no clean clothes upstairs for him. I carried him downstairs wrapped in a towel, threw a diaper and some clothes on him, and yelled at the other kids to get in the car RIGHT NOW!

Okay, so we made it to the guitar lessons on time (exactly), and I survived the poop explosion. I have no idea how the crafty one year old undressed himself (and obviously that is what he was upstairs having a good time doing when my husband came home), but I have realized no matter how many kids I have and how disgusting they are, I can still be surprised and freaked out.