For the weak of stomach, I'm going to warn you now. This post is just gross. In fact.....for the weak of stomach, my blog may not be for you. I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time up to my elbows in poop, pee and other amorphous disgustingness I will refer to as sludge. Dirty Jobs has nothing on me.
We used to call them the tornado twins. Then Chuy became mobile. Now we vascilate between the Tornado Trio and Huey, Duey, and Luey. I told David today that we could add one more and call them the four horsemen of the poopocolypse. Either way, they were at It again this week. No sooner had we arrived at the playground, then Devin pooped in his pants. Just a little, and he was so very apologetic and thankful for help. I left the rest of the kids with Cortney while I went to clean him up. See what happens when you hang out with me? You get to be in the fun stories.
Cortney became suspicious of Tony and called him over to confess. "Are you poopy?"
"No," Tony lied as his stench felled several birds overhead and provided a natural buffer zone that kids instinctively skirted. Cortney decided to check for herself. Which, in retrospect must be like checking the level of the swamp by wading into it. You might learn what you need to know, but in the end you'll be covered in.....sludge and wishing you had some boiling water handy.
Tony blew out all sides of his pull up. No matter that I've spent a couple days trying to coax him into pooping in the potty. Warm baths. Promises of candyland raining down on his happy little head if he would just poop in the potty. Nope. He waited until all I had around me was a public restroom and a stack of criminally undersized baby wipes. Cortney met me at the bathroom door with Tony just as I was letting Devin out.
Really, I think all public restooms ought to fit one stall with a hand held shower head and an industrial sized floor drain. It would decrease the amount of little girls who had to walk by our spectacle going, But mommy! He's naked!" Yeah. It was one of those poops. Stripped down to his birthday suit and cheerfully greeting all who came by to visit him in the bathroom.
"Hi! I Tony! I pooped!" I did the best I could and turned him back out on the unsuspecting public.
The next couple hours passed tolerably well. We ran some errands, switching out who went in for their stuff so we could leave kids in the car. Best way to shop with kids ever. In the pre-Chistmas crush, its so easy for little ones to disappear in racks of clothing and spend years knocking about Narnia before you ever find them again.
The unfortunate thing about errands is that they always take longer than you think they will. By the time we were done, we were running late for our evening Bible study. Time to book it home. About halfway there, that ominous ding sounded, warning of an impending lack of gas. I glanced at the fuel gauge to see that it was on empty. Not near. On. My palms began to sweat. I dropped Cortney off and headed immediately to the gas station. No small surprise, but every single child needed to go potty when we got there. We were 5 minutes late. Not bad. If I could swing by the house and get David, we'd be ok.
There's something you have to understand about the proximity of the gas station to my house. If I stand at the end of my driveway, I can see the gas station. It is close enough that Danae and Drew occasionally get to ride their bikes there for an afternoon treat. In the amount of time it takes to read this, you can walk there and back again. In the amount of time it took to drive it, Chuy had filled and exceeded his diaper so much it was oozing down his legs and all over his car seat. The stench wafting from him was singeing my nose hairs and making my eyes water. We had to stop and hose down the baby. Giving up all pretense of being on time, I got out and dealt with more poop.
If poop was all I dealt with this week I would have been grateful. But it wasn't. This takes a great deal of humility to write, but I've been dealing with a roach problem lately. Not in the kitchen, mostly but every so often I find one elsewhere. Waiting for me in the shower. Hiding under a discarded sock. Crawling across my arm at 2am. Yeah. That one left me awake and paranoid for hours. Also, it's not the little house roaches. It's the great big texas-sized, you-can-rope-and-ride-them kind. I've scrubbed and sprayed and been held back only by the wisdom of my husband from seriously poisoning the whole family in my attempts to be thoroughly rid of them. Then I discovered the feed box.
Just outside our door we have a large deck box to hold animal food, guinea pig shavings and assorted items that need to be kept out of the weather. A cow masquerading as a puppy I used to have chewed it up. It has apparently not been as weather tight as it's supposed to be. The children haven't done a great job of keeping it cleaned out. While looking for something yesterday (I forget what, now in the horror of the details to follow) I discovered the mother of all roach nests. Right outside my front door. They had established their own government and were preparing for full scale invasion of foreign lands. In other words, my house.
I drafted Drew for the job. But he couldn't do it alone. Together we shoveled the most foul smelling muck and roach housing I have ever dealt with. I've sprayed and cleaned and showered. But I still feel dirty. Ugh. Maybe the experience will help him think to keep his feed area clean. I really hope it will sound the death toll for the nasty critters.
