And so began my catatonic phase

Once a week, I give Joles and JL a dual-bath to kill two birds with one wet stone. Usually, it is a Sunday, following the heels of missed naps galore meaning increased efficiency later at bedtime. The kids love it. Joles, especially, loves getting to play in the tub with her baby brother and requests the dual-bath often. JL is less enthusiastic as he seems to suffer frequent, sudden coordinate-altering events from his big sister's enthusiastic play.

In the process, Joles has discovered that her baby brother has a perma-"boo boo" in the form of male genitalia (I did correct her that, no, he did not have some mutant tumor sprouting from his pelvis - those are boy privates). JL has discovered how much fun it can be to play with all of those bath toys (we unleash the flood of them when they are in together.)

Sunday night, I was tub-side, watching them play, JL standing up as he does 95% of the time, when I noticed a piece of brown paper on his bum. You know, like those old school brown paper towel fragments, hanging on for dear life in his butt crevice. I wiped it off with my finger to find it not an old school brown paper towel fragment. It was mushy. It was, in fact, speckled with other colors. And so changed the fate of the night: it was Dookie. On my finger. My finger. In dookie.

My eyes darted around, hoping not to find what I expected to find, but there it was: A parent dookie. Formed, but disintegrating by the second. I screamed, "POOP DOOKIE! POOP DOOKIE! JOLIE! GET OUT OF THERE NOW! POOP DOOKIE!" She scrambled out, watching with concern at her brother and mother losing their shet. A second later I was catching another dookie as it dropped out of his butt with my BARE HAND. "AHHHHHHH! POOP DOOKIE!"

I threw the dookie into toilet and madly tore off a length of TP, grabbing one of the two fraying turds floating in the water and threw it into the toilet. They were multiplying. I did the same with the second, then scooped up JL to rinse him off before he became more contaminated. There were innumerable floating poop remnants drifting in the bath water, in and on and all around the 2,439 bath toys. I set JL down for a minute to pass poor Joles a towel and in that time, he managed to reach into the tub to grab a plastic toy ring and stick it in his mouth. NOOOOOOO!!!!! I got him dry and slathered up in his high-maintenance skin cream regimen, setting him down to lather my nastified hands with 1,000 hand pumps of soap. Scrub. Scrub. Scrub. Which gave JL the perfect opportunity to run his naked, chubby self down the hall and into his bedroom.

"JP! JP! NEED HELLLLLLLLLLLLLP!"

JP was debriefed and was appropriately grossed out and what my hands and my eyes had been through. He took over decon procedures in the bathtub while I got JL and Joles dressed. Afterwards, I sat, shell-shocked on the floor of JL's bedroom. The magnitude of grossness was horrid. For crying out loud, I held human excrement in my bare hands. Again. Again.

Please tell me that was the very last time I'll hold my child's poop in my bare hands. For the love of God.

Comments

[LJ]

Smile! JL just gave Jolie a lifetime memory!

My brother did that, too, and having been done out of my bathtub playtime, I couldn't figure out why Mom wouldn't clean out the tub immediately so I could get back in.

Ummmm...forty-one or so years ago.

[Amanda]

haha. gross. just, gross.

I have not had too many poop issues yet, since my baby is still only 4 months old and we have not yet moved beyond seedy mustard poop, which is decidedly less disgusting than child-who-eats-real-food poop.

And even though in my former job as a nanny I had a 21month old who liked to paint me poo murals in her crib during naptime, the grossest thing I held at that job was a nice big handful of vomit.

Sick four year old comes up to me and says, "Miss Amanda, I don't feel...so...good..." and I stuck my cupped hands straight out to catch that puke. I figured, better wash my hands than scrub the carpet? I guess?

[AJU5's Mom]

Oh, we have that problem REGULARLY with AJU5. I can normally see that it is coming, and I try to get her out, but it doesn't always work. To make matters worse, she refuses to sit on the toilet, so even if I know it is coming, I have to rush to get a diaper on or face the consequences. I do have a bottle of Clorox Bath Cleaner (spray) on the bathroom counter to spray the tub and toys after each and every incident. It is no fun!

[Becca]

Ack!! Although interesting to read, because I always wondered if doctors got skeeved out by this sort of thing like the rest of us do. I hurt my index finger and trying to clean up a poopy diaper without that finger is a huge mess for some reason. Just yesterday I got poop ON MY THUMB. GAG!!

[magpie]

Ack.

When my child was little - maybe a year and a half - she was playing in a kiddie pool with her slightly older cousins. She pooped in the pool, picked it up and showed everyone.

[Inthefastlane]

Ha Ha!!! I think they might have needed a second bath after that :)

[Hetha]

I think I'd be appropriately disturbed by another child's dookie on my hands, but I've had dookie hands (from my own offspring) numerous times and I'm pretty passive about it. Now having puke on my hands (like I did just one hour ago) makes me lose my marbles.

[Tamra]

Please tell me this is not what I have to look forward to! What have I gotten myself into!?!?

[mercutio]

i was babysitting a VERY VERY spoiled 3 year old a while ago, and her mother had requested i give her a bath. and at the end, she refused to get up. so i pulled her out, only to discover the reason why she did not want to get up. ew.

[KC]

LJ- Ah, great moments in sibling history. I can't remember this happening with my little brother though...

Amanda- Oh yeah? JL once spit up curdled milk INTO MY OPEN MOUTH. Long story. Thought twice before lifting him up over me.

AJU5's Mom - I saw a look...probably the herald look..that I should have heeded. I convinced myself it was just a passing absence seizure or something. Denial is ugly.

Becca - maybe some are not bothered but I don't particularly care to get shat on. Some stray poop during changes? I can deal. Having to catch a full dookie in my hands? Different story.

magpie- HA. I mean, ew.

Inthefastlane- there was no time for a second bath. (but there was time for a enormous margarita - jp takes care of me)

hetha- puke doesn't bother me as much. I think I got so used to getting barfed on when they were little that I'm all like - whatevs.

Tamra- don't be scared, babe. I've actually only voluntarily caught poop one other time. Although that time may have been even more disturbing because it was more semi-solid and continuous, kind of like soft serve coming out of the machine in a a stream.

mercutio- ew. cause you know it's disintegrated by then. if there's like a 2-second delay, game over.

[Mary]

Oh, God. I remember when my daughter shat in the tub when she was about 16 months old. I grabbed it and flung it in the toilet without thinking and then had much the same reaction as you did. It makes me shudder now just thinking of it.

[mary ellen]

hahahaha. I'm sorry. I can't. stop. laughing!! My children (and I do mean this to sound every bit as superior as it does) have NEVER POOPED in the bath.
They pee in there.
But that's okay, right??

[Leticia- Tech Savvy Mama]

Your account of the situation was absolutely hilarious although having been through dual-bath-too-many-toys-in-the-tub-dookie scenario too, I know that in the moment it is anything but.

Where was JL's hand sanitizer when you truly needed it?

[Elaine at Lipstickdaily]

Oh yeah . . . just wait until they do it in the tub, you know, when the GI virus is going around . . . yeah . . . and one other thing - - this is NOT the last time you will have poop in your hands! Just so you know.

[Jocelyn]

O.M.G! I am sorry that : 1)this has happened to you - one of my worst nightmares, & 2)that I am ROTFLOL while reading this post!

We do the dual bath every night and I had not thought about this happening. Guess an escape/decon plan needs to be in place!

[KC]

Mary- it's a mother reflex. The poop reflex. Kind of like the gag reflex. Which is related.

mary ellen- pee is a given.

leticia- that job would have laughed at JL's hand sanitizer. Laughed and then spit on it.

elaine- I call NOT IT for that clean-up job. Ugh.

jocelyn - study their faces. Especially the young one. Any hint of hesitation or sudden philosophizing, ACT FAST. The poop is coming. Another warning sign to heed: the herald fart.

[Elaine@That's What It's All About]

ROTFLOL! Such a tale was my inspiration for starting potty training (sigh, nearly a year ago). Anytime "it" happens I find myself panicking on the inside (thinking do I catch it, scoop it, deal with it later, call Dad, all in a split second) and trying not to panic on the outside (lest I give Emily some kind of poop complex!

[Stimey]

This post brought back memories. Ah, good times...

[Manic Mommy]

I can't beleive I didn't see this post sooner! I could have been laughing this hard for days now!

HRH has dropped the kids in the pool. Shockingly, Gremlin has not. Both have an insatiable thirst for bathwater. Eww.

On those dual-tubby nights, I constantly remind HRH in particular(screech actually) that I'm sure Gremlin still pees in the tub.

[Asianmommy]

Ick! I remember those days. Glad they are behind me. :)

[Sue @ My Party of 6]

Way behind on blog reading, but I am CRYING with laughter. Ok - I hope it's funny now.